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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March 26, 2004
100 YEARS AGO • A large number of Lower East Side tenement houses are boiling after their landlords put tenants on notice that their rent was to be raised. It’s been discussed in every Jewish tenement house, in every sweatshop and throughout the Jewish quarter, and, as a result, a massive rent strike has begun…
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March 19, 2004
100 YEARS AGO • A terrible commotion occurred during a performance in the American Theater after a gunman shot at some of the actors onstage from Box C. The two shots caused a panic in the packed theater. The unidentified gunman, whose motives are unknown, immediately disappeared. Coincidentally, Yiddish-theater actor and director Jacob Adler was…
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March 12, 2004
100 YEARS AGO • A private letter has reached the Forward from St. Petersburg that describes the terrible situation that awaits those sent to the frontlines of the raging Russo-Japanese war. A large contingent of mainly Jewish doctors — who it seems were forcibly drafted — was shipped off to the front from St. Petersburg….
The Latest
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March 5, 2004
100 YEARS AGO • A number of novel scams have hit the Lower East Side in recent days. For example, a doctor showed up at the door of Mr. and Mrs. Mendel Lort of Prince Street and told the couple he had been sent by the Board of Health to determine whether the two were…
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The Not-So-Supreme Being?
More than two decades after Harold Kushner’s “When Bad Things Happen to Good People” became a best seller, another rabbi-author has reopened the vexing question of whether divine justice exists in the universe. This time, it’s Benjamin Blech, weighing in with his book, “If God is Good, Why is the World So Bad?” (Simcha Press,…
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POETRY FOUND
When renowned Forward cartoonist Ben Katchor’s telephone fell off his desk and smashed open, he discovered that the plastic shell of the phone was practically empty, with the exception of several small lead weights. These weights were the inspiration for his tragicomedy musical theater production “The Slug Bearers of Kayrol Island, or The Friends of…
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February 27, 2004
100 YEARS AGO • In a story that exemplifies the inhumanity of Russia’s antisemitism, a Jewish doctor who lived with his family in Kiev volunteered to serve in the medical corps of the Russian army, since the lack of doctors on the front in Siberia is well-known. But a Jewish family cannot live outside the…
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HUMOR, PASSION AND KLEZMER
Trying to categorize the Rabbinical School Dropouts is no easy task. The 10-piece klezmer, funk and rock band finds its inspiration from such diverse sources as Frank Zappa, Raymond Scott, Martin Denny, Charles Mingus, Bernard Herrmann, Shostakovich, They Might Be Giants, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Nusrat Fatah Ali Khan. “When I write music for the…
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February 20, 2004
100 YEARS AGO • More than 10,000 partiers streamed into Madison Square Garden one Saturday night this month to take part in the sensational Forward Masked Ball. It was incredible to look down from the packed balconies onto the dance floor, where thousands of couples danced the night away. The masks and costumes made parts…
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The Bare Light of Personal Belief
Shadows are cast by objects and people…. Do you want to skin the whole earth, tearing all the trees and living things off it, because of your fantasy of enjoying bare light? — Mikhail Bulgakov, “The Master and Margarita” The decisive moment in Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” occurs about midway through the…
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Some of Mel Gibson’s Best Friends Are Jewish
Watching Mel Gibson revel in the controversy surrounding his new film, “The Passion of the Christ,” it is easy to understand why critics of the Hollywood star insist that he suffers from some sort of martyrdom complex. But Gibson is not alone in envisioning himself as a modern-day Jesus, subject to crucifixion-by-press-release at the hands…
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