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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Why the ’60s Were the Most Interesting Decade After All
Richard Goldstein has written a book that refutes the old saying, “If you remember the 1960s, you weren’t really there.” Goldstein, the former Village Voice executive editor who helped invent rock criticism with his omnivorous “Pop Eye” column, seems to have been more “there” during the decade than almost anyone else. The self-described “Zelig of…
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A Summer in Paradise
At first glance Alfred and Sylvia Lawrie were hardly the sort of people one would have called intimidating. Alfred was in his late 70s, tall and vague, one of those elderly men who stay long and skinny in the arms and legs, but put on weight in the middle. His beard was white and haphazard,…
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My Storied Life With Gerald Shapiro
In the awful middle of the night hours right after Gerry’s death, when I couldn’t concentrate on anything and was wondering how I was going to get through the night, much less the rest of my life, it occurred to me that the one thing I could do was reread Gerry’s stories, and they comforted…
The Latest
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Of Max Baer, Joe Lelyveld and 8 Other Things About Jewish Nebraska
Six thousand one hundred Jews live in Nebraska with the majority concentrated in Omaha and Lincoln. The Jewish Press, Omaha’s weekly Jewish newspaper, has served Nebraska and western Iowa since 1916. The Reform Temple Israel, established downtown in 1871, moved to midtown and, in 2013, to the western suburbs, where it occupies the grounds of…
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Art A Diaspora at the New Museum
Would you know what it means if I say that we are living in a post-Internet age? A whole lot has been said regarding the designation, but consensus, alas, remains out of grasp. Nonetheless the notion stakes its claim on, even demands, our attention: Whatever, wherever, the post-Internet may be, welcome to it. “Surround Audience,”…
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Baseball’s Jewiest Moment of All
In the top of the ninth inning of a game at Detroit’s Briggs Stadium between the Philadelphia Athletics and the Detroit Tigers on May 2, 1951, things looked bleak for the A’s. They trailed, 3-1, they had a runner on first base, and there were two outs. Manager Jimmy Dykes summoned Lou Limmer to pinch-hit…
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POEM: First Knowledge
Translated from the Hebrew by Ariel Resnikoff and Rivka Weinstock Kisses to the wall Kisses to the alphabet that hung there & the trash-man asks me: You still haven’t conquered The alphabet? – No Still no! First Knowledge fear of heaven, in the first Letter, aleph. Secrets of secrets In aleph! Kisses to the wall…
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Film & TV Why Iris Apfel is a ‘Big Sensation’
Iris Apfel will tell you that she doesn’t like pretty. That may seem like a bold statement from a self-proclaimed geriatric starlet. But then again, as the Queens-born daughter of Jewish parents asks, how many 93-year-old cover girls do you know? A model, a jewelry designer, and a collector, Apfel is now the star of…
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Michigan Opera Director Turns His Hand to Yiddish Theater
“You can’t dance at two weddings with one tukhes,” goes the old Yiddish saying. Tell that to Michael Yashinsky, a 26-year-old Detroit area Yiddishist who divides his time between a Jewish day school and Michigan Opera Theatre. Yashinsky, whose showbiz lineage includes grandparents who were professional actors and an uncle who was a rock star,…
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Film & TV The Jewish Identity of Madeline Kahn
For a long time, starting just after her fiftieth birthday, Madeline Kahn did something eight times a week that she’d never done even once before: she lit Sabbath candles. As Gorgeous Teitelbaum in Wendy Wasserstein’s “The Sisters Rosensweig” (1992–93), Madeline had to connect with a Jewish heritage about which she knew little. She’d grown up…
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Film & TV Their Fathers, The Murderers
Every family history has dark periods. But how do you come to terms with the knowledge that your father is a notorious mass murderer? “A Nazi Legacy: What Our Fathers Did,” a 90-minute documentary that had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in April, tackles this issue with great depth and sensitivity. It…
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