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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Clarice Lispector’s Stories Aren’t Much Fun, But They’ll Sear Your Mind
The Complete Stories By Clarice Lispector, translated by Katrina Dodson New Directions, 640 pages, $28.95 Let us just get this out of the way: Reading the stories of Clarice Lispector, the Brazilian writer who has been dubbed the most important Jewish writer since Kafka, deemed the female Borges, and described as writing like Virginia Woolf…
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Breaking the Silence About Jewish Suicide
A few weeks ago a professional window cleaner came to work at my house in central Jerusalem. The window guy was an affable, middle-aged, native English speaker. After a brief episode of Jewish geography, he began cleaning on the top floor, working his way down to the main floor, where I was writing on my…
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Love and the Grammar of God
In her forthcoming book, ‘The Grammar of God,’ Aviya Kushner — a graduate of the nonfiction writing program at the University of Iowa and a creative writing professor at Columbia College Chicago — draws on lessons she has learned while collecting bibles and assessing the disparities in meaning that exist in its many translations. Through…
The Latest
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12 Can’t-Miss Books for Fall
The tangled relationship between history and myth is one theme that emerges from our idiosyncratic and speculative preview of fall books. It should be fascinating, for example, to compare French Nobel laureate Patrick Modiano’s novelistic deconstruction of the French Resistance with Robert Gildea’s revisionist historical overview of the same subject, “Fighters in the Shadows.” Geraldine…
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Film & TV Should We Expect More From ‘Downton Abbey’ Than Whitewashed Anti-Semitism?
I have a confession: I am completely, utterly addicted to Downton Abbey. It might go against my progressive politics, or , but – let us tell the truth – it is a soap opera in gilded clothes. The sixth and final season is about to premiere next month in the United Kingdom (Americans will have…
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Music The Wagner Opera That’s OK for Jews To Love
In 1981, Zubin Mehta sent shockwaves through Israel by leading the country’s premiere orchestra, the Israel Philharmonic, in a concert encore by Richard Wagner. It was the first time since the establishment of the State that the notoriously anti-Semitic composer’s work had been heard live in Israel. Despite the fighting and shouting in the auditorium,…
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Music The Secret Yiddish History of Public Enemy
If ever there was a time we needed to hear from hip-hop legends Public Enemy, this is it. One might assume that the group that gave voice and sound to the frustrations of African-Americans during the Reagan-Bush years would surely have something powerful to say about America in the age of Ferguson and Baltimore, Eric…
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Matisyahu Flap Shows Europe Jews Are Targeted Over Israel
(JTA) — A Spanish music festival’s recent decision to rescind its invitation to the American reggae singer Matisyahu, after he declined to endorse a Palestinian state, brought international attention to a phenomenon that many European Jews have been feeling for years: that they are being targeted for Israel’s actions. Matisyahu, who is Jewish but not Israeli,…
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In Chicago, Come for the Iran Nuke Deal. Stay for the Smoked Salmon.
The Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago is holding a special meeting today to discuss the Chicago Jewish community’s response to the Iran deal. The Jewish Federation is the most important Jewish organization in Chicago and the meeting today will be attended by members of many Jewish organizations,…
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Welcome to the Jewish Jungle of Suriname
We walked through the muggy jungle battling swarms of bizarre multicolored insects that had probably not yet been discovered by science. As I cleared the brush with a forceful swing of my machete, I wondered what it would have been like to live here 400 years ago when the first Jews arrived. Wait, Jews in…
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Yosi Piamenta, a Virtuoso Guitarist Who Reshaped Jewish Music
Legendary Jewish guitarist Yosi Piamenta died on August 23 after a difficult struggle with cancer. He was 64. Piamenta was a virtuoso guitarist who had a long career performing original music as well as traditional Jewish, Israeli and Arabic songs arranged in his signature style. Born in Israel on November 29, 1951, Piamenta moved to…
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Yiddish די ייִדישע גאַסנשילד פֿונעם פּאַריזער „פּלעצל“ איז צוגעגנבֿעט געוואָרןYiddish street sign for the Pletzel, the Yiddish quarter of Paris, is stolen
דער אינצידענט איז פֿאָרגעקומען בעת אַ ממשותדיקן וווּקס פֿון אַנטיסעמיטיזם אין פֿראַנקרײַך
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