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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Why It’s Critical That We Demythologize The Holocaust
Why? Explaining the Holocaust By Peter Hayes W.W. Norton & Company, 412 pages, $27.95 The historian Peter Hayes has always derided what he regards as simplistic explanations of complicated phenomena. In his popular Holocaust lecture course at Northwestern University, he savaged Daniel Goldhagen’s argument, in “Hitler’s Willing Executioners,” that a uniquely German “eliminationist anti-Semitism” caused…
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These Backstage Ringling Brothers Photos Prove The Circus Was Always A Scary Place
At the beginning of the year, the The Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus announced that they will be putting on their last performances in May of 2017. Since announcing their upcoming closure, the company has received a spate of “in-memoriam” type coverage from the press – most of it nostalgic, some, not so much…
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For James Merrill On His 91st Birthday
Today, we celebrate James Merill’s birthday. Merrill, one of the pre-eminent American poets of the 20th century, was, per his Poetry Foundation bio, the recipient of “nearly every major literary award in America” and a playwright, novelist, and critic, as well as a poet. Born in 1926 in New York City, Merrill was the son…
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For The Director Of ‘Settlers,’ The Failure Of Israel Is Not An Option
For a brief shining moment towards the end of “The Settlers,” director Shimon Dotan gives us the chance to imagine what the Holy Land might look like, in a parallel, better universe. The speaker is 38-year-old Yossi Fruman, a young rabbi living in the settlement of Tekoa B’. “This land belongs to God, not to…
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Theater The Unbearable Sadness Of Being Single And Jewish (Natch)
“You just have to meet your bashert,” says grandma, sagely. Jordan, her late-20s grandson, is despairing that his friends are all getting married and he’s still alone. “And you will,” grandma continues, “because you’re the most wonderful grandson in the world.” Jordan is sad, but he’s also smart and a smartass. “I don’t think that’s…
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Remembering Gustav Metzger, Pioneer Of Auto Destructive Art
Artist and political activist Gustav Metzger died on March 1st the age of 90 at his London home, according to publicist Erica Bolton. Outside of the art world, Metzger’s name might be a little obscure, but if you’ve ever seen a video of The Who destroying their guitars, then you’ve seen the impact of Metzger’s…
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Lou Reed’s Archive To Be Housed In The New York Public Library
Lou Reed was many things – loud, transgressive, mean (at least, on record), brash, innovative. One thing he was not, however, was quiet (though he had his moments). That’s why the recent announcement that Reed’s archives (previously held by Artist and Reed’s Widow, Laurie Anderson) will be housed in the New York Public Library is, in…
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What The Desecrated Jewish Cemeteries Mean For The Living And The Dead
Why does the sight of a toppled gravestone incense us so sorely? As a way in, imagine a different sort of scenario, one perhaps more visceral and more literal in its horror. Imagine the photographs of Roman Vishniac from his book, “A Vanished World.” The photographs depict Eastern European shtetl life just before the cataclysm…
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Daphne Merkin Reports From the Front Lines of Depression
In “The Depressed Person,” David Foster Wallace, no stranger to depression, posits that the pain wrought by “the impossibility of sharing or articulating” the condition of being depressed “was itself a component of the pain and a contributing factor in its essential horror.” The story details the depressed person’s “clumsy attempts to describe at least…
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Theater David Mamet Finds God, Still Searches For Inspiration
David Mamet has written a new play, and, unlike his last three new ones produced in New York, it is not offensively bad. It is merely not at all good. That’s not quite true. It is potentially, slightly, maybe a little bit good. It is centered on a kernel of a good and interesting idea:…
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Holocaust Scholar Threatened With Deportation Asks ‘Is The United States Still The United States?’
When Henry Rousso landed at Houston’s George Bush International Airport on February 22, the Paris-based historian, who studies Holocaust-era Europe, was expecting a smooth entry to the country, where he was scheduled to attend a symposium at Texas A&M University. After all, as an academic Rousso had spent 30 years making international trips for conferences….
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