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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Recalling Viktor Korchnoi — He Woulda Coulda Shoulda Been Our Chess Champion
The Russian Jewish chess grandmaster Viktor Korchnoi, who died on June 6 at age 85, proved that if an opponent brings in a psychic to defeat you, you can destroy the adversary by letting loose gurus. This was the surreal scenario in the 1978 chess World Championship match in Baguio City, Philippines, as described in…
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Paul Simon’s Latest Masterpiece Has Surprising Biblical Overtones
Paul Simon released his 13th solo album, “Stranger to Stranger,” to nearly unanimous and deservedly great critical acclaim last Friday. With Bob Dylan stuck in a rut of recording Frank Sinatra tribute albums, and Leonard Cohen churning out live albums at a rapid pace (“Live in Dublin,” “Live in London” – can “Live at Leeds”…
The Latest
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How Sayed Kashua Became an Outsider in Israel — and in America
Sayed Kashua is a man of many contradictions. He’s Arab, but writes only in Hebrew (at age 14, he left his village to attend a boarding school for gifted students in Jerusalem). He’s a hugely successful writer in Israel — he’s written three novels, the popular sitcom “Arab Labor,” a weekly column in Haaretz, and…
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Why I Fell Out of Love With Kabbalah
This is not a review of the new anthology by Daniel Horwitz, “A Kabbalah and Jewish Mysticism Reader”; it’s about something I realized when I saw the book on my editor’s bookshelf — that I’m not in love with Kabbalah anymore. Horwitz’s anthology, part of a series from the Jewish Publication Society, is only somewhat…
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Peter Shaffer, Producer of ‘Equus’ and ‘Amadeus,’ Dies at 92
The award-winning British playwright Sir Peter Shaffer, best known for penning “Amadeus” and “Equus,” died Monday in County Cork, Ireland, of pneumonia and age-related issues, his long-time agent said. He was 90. Shaffer was surrounded by friends and family at the time of his death, just a few weeks after his 90th birthday, agent Dennis…
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Why Barbra Streisand Should Think Twice About Starring in ‘Gypsy’
Just because Barbra can do something does not mean that Barbra should do it. The recent news that long-percolating plans for Streisand to star in a film of the Jule Styne musical “Gypsy” will occur has thrilled millions of fans. Not long ago, Barry Levinson shepherded the volcanic Al Pacino through two monstrous TV film…
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After Havdalah, a Sense of Exile
I remember, when I was 6 or 7 years old, a ritual: Immediately after Havdalah my mother would run over to the phone — a yellow rotary phone embedded in the kitchen wall, to call her parents. It was 1970 or thereabouts. We lived in Montreal then, and it was a long-distance call to New…
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The Secret Jewish History of Muhammad Ali
The boxer Muhammad Ali, who died on June 3 at the age of 74, has been accused of having “frequently clashed with the Jewish people.” The truth is more complex. The Louisville-born heavyweight champ was raised a Baptist, but joined the Nation of Islam in 1964, abandoning his birth name of Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr….
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Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
Where the Bird Sings Best By Alejandro Jodorowsky, translated from the Spanish by Alfred MacAdam Restless Books, 416 pages, $27.99 Albina and the Dog-Men By Alejandro Jodorowsky, translated from the Spanish by Alfred MacAdam Restless Books, 224 pages, $15.99 In Alejandro Jodorowsky’s recently translated autobiographical novel “Where the Bird Sings Best,” his maternal great-grandmother Sara…
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Nathan Englander’s Masterful Parable of Occupation
This Month Anne Reads: “Sister Hills” by Nathan Englander, from his collection of short stories “What we Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank.” This is a heart-flipping horror story about us, about everything Jews hold dear. It is a prophesy in the Amos and Jeremiah sense, and it is a diagnosis in the…
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Music and Pomegranates Merge at Greater Chicago Jewish Festival
In 1980 Skokie, Ill. lawyer Michael Lorge and about 20 of his friends were trying to create a positive Jewish community response for what they saw as an identity in trouble. Though Israel and Egypt had established diplomatic relations in January, only three months later five Palestinian Arabs from the Iraqi-backed Arab Liberation Front raided…
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