This is the Forward’s coverage of Jewish culture where you’ll learn about the latest (and sometimes earliest) in Jewish art, music (including of course Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen), film, theater, books as well as the secret Jewish history of…
Culture
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Saving Private Grossman
Forward Forum When the film “Saving Private Ryan” came out a couple of years back, I thought that it might be a way to get my father-in-law to talk about his experience at Omaha Beach. So I asked him whether the opening scene in the movie, with its horrific portrayal of the first hours of…
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‘Killer Coke’ Campaign Targets UJA Honoree on Colombia Rights
Attendees at a United Jewish Appeal-Federation of New York dinner next week will have to pass through a picket line on their way inside. The black-tie dinner, set to honor the president and chief operating officer of the Coca-Cola Company, Steven Heyer, has become the subject of a protest by the Campaign to Stop Killer…
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Rabbinical Turf Fight in Lithuania Spills From Shul Onto Front Pages
A months-long battle between two rabbis in Lithuania turned violent last week as the pair scuffled during the Jewish harvest festival of Shavuot. As with most matters involving their feud, both Rabbi Sholom Krinsky and Rabbi Chaim Burshtein are claiming the high road and are unable to agree on the basic facts of the situation….
The Latest
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Communal Bodies Split Over Federal Budget Talks
Two closely linked Jewish representative bodies have staked out opposing stances on the federal budget resolution adopted last week by the House of Representatives, reflecting what observers say is a growing tension between the two arms of the federated Jewish philanthropic system. The two organizations are United Jewish Communities, a national service agency representing the…
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U.S. Groups Warn Israel On Failure To Pull Out
WASHINGTON — American Jewish communal leaders are warning Prime Minister Sharon that a failure to implement his Gaza pullout plan could jeopardize Jerusalem’s relations with the Bush administration. Sharon and members of his Cabinet received this blunt assessment last week from media mogul and real estate magnate Mortimer Zuckerman, the immediate past chairman of the…
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Intel Agencies Fear Iran Used Chalabi To Lure U.S. Into Iraq
American intelligence and law enforcement agencies are investigating the possibility that Ahmad Chalabi, the former Iraqi exile leader, was used by Iranian intelligence to feed Washington false information on Iraq, with the goal of tricking America into deposing Saddam Hussein, Iran’s archenemy, several intelligence sources have confirmed. Chalabi, once the darling of the Bush administration’s…
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Karaoke Without the Culpability
The best trends always come around again: Leg warmers grace the pages of Vogue, shag carpets line the floors of hipster apartments and — finally — shira betzibur is cool once more. Shira betzibur, which translates as “singing in public,” is an Israeli communal activity of passing out songsheets and singing Israeli songs together, usually…
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May 28, 2004
100 YEARS AGO • New York City detectives are searching for 15-year-old Katy Garfinkel of East Harlem. Garfinkel disappeared two weeks ago. Her uncle, Paul Garfinkel, has been looking for her and just last week received information that placed the girl in a brothel on 30th Street. Garfinkel arrived at the brothel with two detectives,…
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More Tears by the Rivers of Babylon
It is impossible to compile an absolutely accurate list of the Jewish service personnel who have been killed in Iraq. The Defense Department no longer keeps statistics on the religion of its personnel. Moreover, Jewish chaplains observe a policy of strict confidentiality regarding the faith of service personnel and will neither confirm nor deny whether…
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The Man Who Couldn’t Escape Being Jewish
Raphael Soyer and the Search For Modern Jewish Art By Samantha Baskind North Carolina University Press, 280 pages, $39.95. * * *| For most of his long career, Raphael Soyer worked hard to avoid being called a “Jewish” artist. Soyer, who died in 1987 in his 88th year, styled himself a “New York painter,” a…
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It’s the Economy, Stupid! (and Morality and Patriotism and…. )
Reason: Why Liberals Will Win the Battle for America By Robert Reich Knopf, 272 pages, $24. * * *| Robert Reich has played many roles: professor, writer, bureaucrat, labor secretary and political candidate. Now he is joining the ranks of celebrity-authors peddling punchy, polemic, liberal books for this active political season. His goal is to…
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