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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PSALM 151
“Poetry is a fireplace in summer or a fan in winter.” So wrote Basho, the great 17th-century haiku master. The master meant that poetry need not be useful in any obvious sense. On the other hand, who needs a poem about snow in the middle of winter? Far better to have one now, when temperatures…
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… And the Most Important
June is upon us and with it, wedding preparations are in full swing: last minute fittings; anxious consultations with the clergy or other officiants; continual emendations to the seating chart; and, perhaps most significantly, a seemingly endless stream of conversations with the caterer — arguably the person of the hour. When it comes to staging…
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The Bride, the Groom, the Rabbi…
An Excerpt From ‘Clearing the Aisle, by Karen Schwartz (Downtown Press) * * *| Any lingering doubts I may have had about the Gershons’ rabbi had started to fade when he’d suggested we meet over lunch at Barney Greengrass. “I can’t be in New York and not eat there,” he said, “so this way, I’ll…
The Latest
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Is This Too Much To Expect?
Zechariah 3:1-4, in the Haftarah to this week’s portion, reads: And he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. And the Lord said unto Satan: “… is not this man a brand plucked from the fire?” Now Joshua was…
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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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Showing ‘Spirit,’ Going Red and Taking Time for Israel
“Most of us who have passed the 60-year mark are living proof of the advances made in medical research,” said Texas’s former governor, Ann Richards, at the May 4 “Spirit of Achievement” luncheon of the National Women’s Division of Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University. Richards praised the college for its “pioneering research…
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Locks of Love
Throughout the term of his vow as Nazirite, no razor shall touch his head; it shall remain consecrated until the completion of his term as Nazirite of the Lord, the hair of his head being left to grow untrimmed. (Numbers 6:5) Before my 9-year-old-daughter, Anna, was conceived, I was filled with a biblical longing to…
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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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