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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Everything You Wanted To Know About Menorahs But Were Afraid To Ask
Hanukkah does not begin until December 24, but the historian Steven Fine has already captured the holiday mood in “The Menorah: From the Bible to Modern Israel.” Among other things, Fine’s book, published by Harvard University Press, explains the distinction between the seven-branched menorah used in the ancient Temple and the hanukiah, or nine-branched candelabrum…
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The Secret Jewish History of ‘The Nutcracker’
A memory of pure magic: I am eight years old, dressed in a special red fleece cap and cape, dashing to a stage door at the Denver Center for Performing Arts with snow falling around me. Backstage is magical, a cavernous room dotted with enchanting, candy-colored set pieces and filled with tutu-clad ballerinas. I was…
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How My Subversive Hanukkah Bush Is Part of the War on Christmas
I never suffered the “December dilemma” as a child. Born to a lapsed Catholic mother and Reform Jewish father, I (badly) observed both Christmas and Hanukkah. We decorated a tree and lit the menorah. And, as Dad put on the Santa costume and mom fried the latkes, our family lived out its own loose and…
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Volkswagen Can Change Its Language — But Not Its History
The German foundation Deutsche Sprache (“German Language”) announced Thursday that it had sold all its shares in Volkswagen, after the carmaker announced plans to switch its official language from German to English. “The words ‘Volkswagen’ and ‘German language’ will no longer fit together,” the foundation’s executive spokesman Walter Krämer said in a statement objecting to…
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Woody Allen Wrote A Very Jewish Book Review For The New York Times
Unless you’re an old movie buff (or were around when such movies were made), you could be forgiven for not knowing the name ”Mary Astor,” which (quite consciously, I think) sounds like it was taken right out of a 1930’s country club roll call. You may not know Astor (most famous for her role in…
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Why the Christmas Season Feels Like Trauma to Me
I never talk about this, but when I was a kid growing up in New Orleans, I was afraid of the colors red and green. It didn’t matter the season; if I saw the two together, I rushed to avert my gaze. Returning Magic Markers to their box, I took care not to let the…
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6 New Poems For Trump’s America
In which our Jewish poet laureate opines about the dawning Trump era — in verse. #1 You too can own Ivanka’s dress! It’s pink, it’s svelte, it screams success Not sewn on 7th Avenue But made in China just for you. #2 Ribbon cuttings, they’ll be grand! This POTUS won’t disown his brand. “Trump” in gold…
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Remembering Dan Pagis 30 Years After His Death
The widely-admired poet Dan Pagis, famous for his haunting poems of the Holocaust, was the subject of a special memorial conference at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheva, Israel. A Romanian-born Holocaust survivor who died in 1986 at age fifty-six, Pagis was also an important scholar of medieval Hebrew literature. The conference, which took place entirely in…
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Why ‘Farkakt’ Is Only One of Many Words That Describes 2016
Dictionary editors and cultural denizens are scrambling to come up with a single word to describe the craziness of 2016 — and some are turning to Yiddish for ideas. After flirting with “fascism” as a possibility, Merriam-Webster went with “surreal,” which it defines as “marked by the intense irrational reality of a dream.” The word…
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Superstition Vies With Faith at Yiddish New York
There they are, in Sanford Drob’s “Expulsion:” a man and woman, draped in animal skins, seized with grief – the woman gazing forward, determined but horrified, the man covering his face with his hand – and wearing armbands emblazoned with yellow Jewish stars, the word “Jude” at their centers. It’s a painting that, despite the…
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Why a 90-Year-Old Jewish Prayer Still Seems Relevant Today
In contemplating the current political climate, some of us may turn inward, others may turn to drink and still others to prayer, beseeching the Almighty to “plant among the peoples of different nationalities and faiths who dwell here, love and brotherhood, peace and friendship.” These 18 words appear in “Prayer for Our Country,” which dates…
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