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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The Crowd at the Met Just Got a Whole Lot Younger
On a recent drizzly Monday morning, the usual adult crowd at the Metropolitan Opera was replaced by 2,000 rowdy schoolchildren who were there to watch the last dress rehearsal of “The Barber of Seville.” Out on the plaza in front of the theater, teachers rounded up stray children playing tag. “Hold hands!” they ordered, and…
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How Did Nazi-Looted Art Wind Up in Israel — and What Can Be Done About It?
Yagna Yass-Alston, a Polish doctoral student, was on a fellowship in Israel last year when she visited the Museum of Art Ein Harod in the Jezreel Valley. She wanted to look at two paintings there for her dissertation research on Jewish art collectors in Krakow. Looking into the museum’s inventory files, a reference to a…
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A Secret at the Paris Opera
June 1964. Three college men. In those days there were no such things as dudes or guys, only men. Three undergraduates, all in Europe for the first time. After a marvelous week in London, I met up with two friends in Paris. We had already spent more than a week there, doing the city. A…
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Rediscovering the Author Who Was Dismissed as a Stalinist Harpy
The French author Elsa Triolet (1896–1970), born Elsa Kagan to a Russian Jewish family, has been decried by some critics as a Stalinist harpy. This year, “Le Figaro Magazine” faulted Triolet’s “steely egotism and and equally unerring political blindness.” Triolet and her husband the poet Louis Aragon were devotees — sometimes partially critical ones —…
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Why An 1855 Jewish Conference Is Still Worth Conferring About
This past month I’ve been to more conferences than I care to remember. In this, I’m not alone. Taking to the road, the rails and the air to attend one or another confab has become routine — just one of the ways most of us conduct business, circulate ideas and products, and get into the…
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Art How Russia Created a Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center Even Vladimir Putin Can Tolerate
Today, post-Communist Europe is experiencing a museum boom. Countries are trying to consolidate a collective identity in museums that tell their nation’s story in a way that was not possible under communism. Jewish museums and Holocaust memorials offer not only histories of Jewish communities in a given town or country, but also a perspective on…
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What’s Next for Valmadonna Judaica Trove After Record-Shattering Sale?
It was the highest price ever paid for a Jewish book. And the sale, along with 11 other books, broke up the most valuable private Judaica collection ever assembled. How much further the famed Valmadonna Trust Library may be broken up is unclear—and remains a concern of scholars and collectors around the world. The book…
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Remembering the Artistic and Spiritual Legacy of Elizabeth Swados
“She was a Jewish girl. She was committed to her people,” said Tobi Kahn, who worked on the set design at The Public Theater for Elizabeth Swados’s 1990 musical “Jonah.” “She was Jewish in all the right ways. She understood the plight of suffering, the plight of children. She did tons for the Jews. She…
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Art Israeli Teens Honor Charlie Hebdo With Cartoons
These political cartoons made by Israeli teens offer an interesting insight into the issues that preoccupy Israeli youth today. The Jerusalem Press Club, in collaboration with the Israel Cartoon Museum, launched a competition titled titled “Cartoon, Criticism, Care.” In the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attack, the competition deals with the balance between freedom of…
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Bernie Sanders Takes a Bite out of Bible With Attack on ‘Usury’
As election season heats up, candidates tend to turn to God, and specifically his favorite book, The Bible. Bernie Sanders put it this way Tuesday on the campaign trail: “In my view, it is unacceptable that Americans are paying a $4 or $5 fee each time they go to the ATM. It is unacceptable that…
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The Secret Jewish History of Frederick Forsyth
The latest book from Frederick Forsyth — author of bestselling espionage thrillers like “The Day of The Jackal,” “The Odessa File,” and “The Dogs of War” — is a bit of a departure for the 77-year-old author. “The Outsider” is a memoir, and it turns out that Forsyth has led a life every bit as…
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