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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Catholic Headmaster Helps Jewish Academy Prosper
When Adam Holden, 38, took over as the headmaster at the Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy — the only Jewish day school in the Kansas City metropolitan area — he never was sure when he met Orthodox women and girls whether he should shake their hands. This uncertainty makes sense, given that the British-born Holden is…
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Dr. Ruth Shares Her Passion — for Israel
As America’s most outspoken sex therapist, Dr. Ruth Westheimer is an expert at keeping romance alive. Now, Dr. Ruth is focusing on a different kind of passion: her love for Israel. Before she was writing books and hosting talk shows about sex, Dr. Ruth served in the Haganah, fighting valiantly in Israel’s War of Independence….
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Israeli Innovator Eyes American Schools Hebrew Gets Hot at Universities
Yaacov Hecht helped transform the school system in Israel. Now he has come to the United States to talk about the state of education in America. As the director of the Tel Aviv-based Institute for Democratic Education, Hecht has long been pushing the idea of “democratic education” — schools and classes that are more participatory…
The Latest
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January 23, 2004
100 YEARS AGO • Cigarmaker Sam Gold, 24, was in love with Annie Ordover, 20, and asked her to marry him. Annie, however, wasn’t interested and brushed off his advances. On Friday night, when Gold proposed again in the middle of Sixth Street, he was rebuffed a second time. It was then that he pulled…
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Adios, Spanish! Hebrew Gets Hot on Campus
Stephen Black wanted to study Hebrew in high school. But despite the sizable Jewish community in his New Jersey hometown, Black’s public school didn’t offer Hebrew classes, so he settled for Spanish instead. Then, last fall, when he enrolled as a freshman at Harvard University, Black had the chance at last to study Hebrew, and…
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Judaic Studies Classes See Enrollment Boom
Lauren Twigg entered San Diego State University as an undergraduate four years ago with a game plan: She would study business and become a chief executive officer of a powerful company. But what she didn’t bank on was that she’d be bored to tears by her math and economics courses. “I figured if I didn’t…
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Israel Advocacy Coalition Targeting High Schools
In response to what many are calling the sad state of Israel advocacy on college campuses, prominent Jewish communal officials and educators have settled on a new approach to teaching undergraduates how to defend the Jewish state: Start in high school. About 60 juniors and seniors from Jewish high schools in the New York metropolitan…
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Russian School Helps Kids Maintain Parents’ Heritage
The mass exodus of Jews from the former Soviet Union in the past decade has created a unique quandary for Jewish schools: How can educators help immigrants’ children maintain links to a country they don’t know, and imbue them with knowledge of a religion and culture that is often unfamiliar to their parents? The Shalom…
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January 16, 2004
100 YEARS AGO • Brooklyn resident Annie Shneur needed money to buy medicine for her four children, all of whom are sick with diphtheria. The recently widowed Shneur was arrested after she walked out of a Brooklyn department store with $25 worth of clothing. Pale and thin, she stood before the judge and admitted that…
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January 9, 2004
• One of the elderly residents of the Minsk home for the Jewish indigent didn’t show up for lunch when called. When his fellow residents went to check on him, they determined that he was no longer among the living and quickly sent his body to the cemetery. Since, according to Jewish law, a corpse…
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January 2, 2004
100 YEARS AGO • All of Chicago is in mourning after a massive fire broke out in the Iroquois Theater, killing more than 600 people — mostly women and children — during a matinee performance. A spark from an electrical cord set a chorus girl’s costume on fire, which led to the explosion of some…
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