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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I have seen the future of America — in a pastrami sandwich in Queens
San Wei, which serves pastrami sandwiches along with churros and biang biang noodles, represents an immigrant's fulfillment of the American dream
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Remembering More Than a Century of M.H. Abrams
Many people forget their English professors as soon as the last exam has been passed, but Meyer Howard Abrams, who died on April 21st at the age of 102, was an exception to this and other general rules. Abrams, who signed his books M. H. and was known to friends and colleagues at Cornell as…
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Benjamin Harshav, Literary Scholar and Translator, Dies at 86
Benjamin Harshav, a translator, poet and scholar of Hebrew and Yiddish literature, died April 23 in New Haven, Connecticut. He was 86. Harshav was a mentor to generations of students and, together with his wife Barbara Harshav, a prolific translator of Yiddish and Hebrew poetry. Harshav also translated Yiddish and German literature into Hebrew, and…
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Art At World’s Fair, Israel Looks Back To Its Future
This year, Israel’s contribution to the World’s Fair is, more or less, breakfast cereal. The theme of the fair, which opens in Milan in May and runs for six months, is “Feeding the planet, energy for life.” Israel will be represented by a 39-by-230-foot living billboard of wheat, rice and corn. It is meant to…
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Art Holocaust Survivor Donates Art Worth $500M to Chicago Museum
The largest art gift in the history of the Art Institute of Chicago has been donated to the museum by Stefan Edlis, a Vienna-born Jewish industrialist and art collector, and his wife Gael Neeson. The over 40 works from Edlis’ collection of Pop and contemporary art that will go to the museum include nine silkscreens…
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Vladimir Slepak, Famed Soviet Refusenik, Dies
One of the most iconic activists in the Soviet Jewry movement, Volodya Slepak, has died. A man with a fascinating life story, Slepak’s father had been a diehard communist who opposed his son’s 17-year-long struggle to emigrate out of the Soviet Union (a generational battle chronicled beautifully by Chaim Potok in his book, ). Slepak’s…
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This Israeli Dad Watches Porn All Day — It’s His Job
OHR YEHUDA, Israel (JTA) – During working hours, while his 4-year-old son is at nursery school, closes the door to his small home office — less to keep out the noise than to prevent his mother-in-law from walking in on him while he’s watching pornography. It’s not as outlandish as it sounds: Watching X-rated films…
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Books Is This Man a Prophet or a Provocateur?
Catch the Jew! By Tuvia Tenenbom Gefen Publishing House, 484 pages, $24.95 Liberal Jews chagrined at the recent elections in Israel probably should read Tuvia Tenenbom’s “Catch the Jew.” Tenenbom’s book, in which he narrates his travels and conversations in Israel and the West Bank, will not provide comfort. In fact, he holds leftist Jews…
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Film & TV ’24 Days’ Is a Real-Life French Horror Story
As the French say, the more things change, the more they stay the same. That’s the sad take-away from the tense new drama, “24 Days.” The movie, which is about the kidnapping, torture and savage murder of a young French Jew, will likely fill you with a mixture of rage and despair, especially because the…
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Close Encounters of the Steven Spielberg Kind in Arizona
During the seven years that the four Spielberg siblings lived in Phoenix, Arizona, they didn’t always get to sleep through the night. Often, when there was a meteor shower or comet, their father Arnold would get Steven, Anne, Sue and Nancy out of their beds, and drive them in his Jeep to the desert around…
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The Road to David Brooks’ Character
David Brooks is nothing if not solicitous. After changing the time and location of our scheduled meeting with just an hour’s notice, he was plainly grateful that I was able to show up on time. When we met in the gleaming lobby of the New York Times building in midtown Manhattan, quiet at an early…
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There’s a British Royal Buried in Jerusalem — And 9 Other Things You May Not Know About Israel
JTA) — Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day, falls on April 23. In honor of the Jewish state’s 67th birthday, we present, in no particular order, 10 little-known aspects of its history. 1) El Al used to fly to Tehran. Iran and Israel enjoyed mostly good relations up until the Islamic revolution that overthrew the shah…
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