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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On J.D. Salinger’s 100th Birthday, His Not-So-Secret Jewish History
Celebrations of the American Jewish author J.D. Salinger’s 100th birthday on January 1 continue apace. A J. D. Salinger Boxed Set Centennial Edition has appeared and forthcoming are a new study by Sarah Graham and a paperback reissue of Thomas Beller’s anecdotal biography. The writer, who died in New Hampshire in 2010, will also be…
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A Carnival Ride Reimagining Of The Book Of Jeremiah
Muck: A Novel Dror Burstein Translated from the Hebrew by Gabriel Levin Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 400 pages, $27 Prophets don’t really see the future. What they see all too clearly is the present. That’s why prophecy is a lonely, thankless job. Think about the fate of the biblical Jeremiah. For about 40 years, he…
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Amos Oz and Jerusalem: A Complicated Relationship
For Amos Oz, the publication of his memoir “A Tale of Love and Darkness” was an electric moment. “As if I was digging in my own backyard, and I must have touched an underground cable; suddenly the lights in all of the windows began to flash,” he told me in 2011. The book, he said,…
The Latest
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Amos Oz, Remembered By Those Who Knew Him
Amos Oz was enormously influential, a literary giant whose work helped shape his fledgling country, Israel. But, Jessica Cohen says, he was also kind. “Even though he was famous, an internationally renowned author and intellectual, when you sat and talked with him in his living room it was just like talking with a nice guy,”…
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In 1974, Amos Oz Wasn’t World-Famous — But He Was Already A Political Rebel
Editor’s note: Amos Oz died on December 28, 2018. To commemorate his life, we revisited this glimpse of Oz before he became a figure of international renown, originally published by the Forverts on December 4, 1974. Last week at the 92nd St. Y in Manhattan a young and famous writer from Israel — Amos Oz…
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Amos Oz’s Last Interview: ‘Israel Is A Flawed Dream Come True’
Editor’s note: Amos Oz passed away on December 28, 2018 at the age of 79. The Forward’s Naomi Zeveloff spoke with him by phone a month before his death. The following interview was one of Oz’s last. Amos Oz, arguably Israel’s most celebrated author, dedicated his most recent book, “Dear Zealots: Letters from a Divided…
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Books Amos Oz, Peerless Chronicler Of Israel’s Triumph And Tragedy, Dies At 79
Israeli writer Amos Oz, Israel Prize laureate, died on Friday at 79 after fighting cancer. My beloved father, Amos Oz, a wonderful family man, an author, a man of peace and moderation, died today peacefully after a short battle with cancer. He was surrounded by his lovers and knew it to the end. May his…
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Amos Oz, On Himself
A Tale of Love and Darkness By Amos Oz Harcourt, 544 pages, $26. ——— Since 1968, when his novel “My Michael” — exquisitely narrated by a despairing young wife in Jerusalem — mesmerized thousands of readers, Amos Oz has been recognized as one of Israel’s most gifted and prolific authors. He has produced 22 books…
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Wrestling With Faith in the Land of Oz
● JEWS AND WORDS By Amos Oz and Fania Oz-Salzberger Yale University Press, 248 pages, $25 In the epilogue to “Jews and Words,” the authors raise the age-old question “Who is a Jew?” to which they respond, “Whoever is wrestling with the question ‘Who is a Jew?’” It is not an original answer, but it’s…
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Amos Oz Looks Forward — and Back
Literature was once more at the forefront of Israel’s national conversation when I met Amos Oz during the first week of January. The Education Ministry had decided to remove Dorit Rabinyan’s novel “Borderlife” from the national curriculum, on the basis that an Israeli-Palestinian love story would confuse young people’s sense of identity. Print sales skyrocketed….
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Elizabeth Wurtzel Learns Her Father Was Civil Rights Photographer Bob Adelman
Elizabeth Wurtzel, famous for “Prozac Nation” and infamous for her claim that motherhood isn’t a job, is speaking out against her mother for her failure as a parent. That failure? To tell her who her real father was. In a blistering essay for The Cut, Wurtzel reveals that she lived her life until 2015 believing…
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