Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of Jewish culture. Here, you’ll learn about the latest (and sometimes earliest) in Jewish art, music, film, theater, books as well as the secret Jewish history of everything and everyone from The Rolling Stones to…
Culture
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The towering Jewish critic who taught me to grok art and hate Picasso
After Max Kozloff died at 91, a New York community came together to remember and to mourn
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How To Make an Unorthodox Playlist For Your Orthodox Rabbi
A few weeks ago, after Sabbath- morning services at my local Chabad, my spiritual leader, Rabbi Yossi, asked me for a favor: He wanted me to choose 20 songs for him to listen to, secular music with a Jewish vibe. He had recently heard Leonard Cohen’s “Who by Fire,” derived from the High Holidays prayer,…
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Yoga Helps Teachers Connect To Jewish Values
Halfway through the 16-day Breathe for Change teacher-training program – on a day called “Breathe for Communication” – 50 teachers sat inside the Speyer School in Manhattan, eager to learn how to “foster deeper relationships.” The teachers assumed crisscross positions, like their own students might do. One woman ate a peanut-butter sandwich from a Ziploc…
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The Earth Moved For Them — Did It Move For You?
The Louisville Jewish Community Center has had a garden for years, but never the staff to make the most of it. For Michael Fraade, a member of the first cohort of Hazon’s JOFEE Fellowship who is spending the year working on the JCC’s environmental programming, that garden has the potential to change the ways in…
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Her Cousin Just Wanted To Pick Some Peaches — What Could Be So Terrible?
I was 8 years old and was standing on the front lawn of my house in Queens with my little sister, who was 4. We were standing under our favorite tree — a peach tree, a glorious, bursting peach tree, laden and heavy with ripe, fuzzy fruit. Lots of times, my sister and I would…
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Jews and Muslims Form Enduring Friendships at Brooklyn Camp
Some of the children who rushed to cool off in the pool on a sunny July morning would not have attended camp together a few years ago. They lived next-door to each other, but their South Brooklyn communities often kept their distance. Now they splash around in the water before lunch, the only traces of…
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In Delmore Schwartz’s Stories, a Reader’s Responsibilities Begin
This month Anne reads: “In Dreams Begin Responsibilities,” by Delmore Schwartz In the first issue of The Partisan Review in 1935 Delmore Schwartz age 21 published this remarkable short story and was instantly recognized as a writer of unusual quality. The story, “In Dreams Begin Responsibilities” is as powerful today as it was at the…
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Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz Wants To Talk Sex Ed, Modern Orthodox Style
Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz is ready to talk frankly with Jewish youth about sex — and he thinks you should be, too. Yanklowitz, a central figure in the Open Orthodoxy movement, has called publicly in workshops, speeches and Op-Eds for comprehensive sex education in Orthodox Jewish schools, including accurate, extensive information about STD/STI prevention, sexual and…
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Why I Still Love Barbra Streisand — Even If Her New Duets Album ‘Encore’ Falls Flat
My love for Barbra Streisand is one whose month is ever May. Her idiosyncrasies are to be cherished. Only Streisand could be forgiven for shooting “The Prince of Tides” showing just one side of her face or having Stephen Sondheim rewrite lyrics entirely for her benefit. I tend to refer to her as Babs, not…
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How Sonia Rykiel’s Jewish Family Inspired Her Exultant Art
The fashion designer Sonia Rykiel, who died on August 25 at age 86, was prized as one of the leading lights of French Jewish artistic achievement. Joan Nathan’s “Quiches, Kugels, and Couscous: My Search for Jewish Cooking in France” lists Rykiel among prominent Gallic Jews, alongside Marcel Marceau, Anouk Aimée, Simone Signoret, and Nostradamus. Rykiel,…
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Ringling Brothers’ Alana Feld Didn’t Have To Run Away To Join the Circus
After 146 years, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus is packing up its tents for good. For a half-century, the iconic American entertanment company has been owned by the Feld family. Here’s how Alana Feld described her life’s work in the three-ring world in a Forward interview last year. Alana Feld runs her business…
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Learning From The Complex Jewish Stories of FringeNYC
It’s good, it’s bad, it’s very enthusiastic: FringeNYC has been rampaging through the city since August 12th, and will close on August 28th. I’ve been exploring some of the festival’s Jewish-interest offerings, and while some have closed, here’s what I’ve learned. Gilad Shalit’s saga is still compelling Cassie M. Seinuk’s “From the Deep,” which closed…
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