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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Art
Vienna’s Most Jewish Street
Growing up in Vienna means that your primary school education included memorizing the first stanza of the Blue Danube Waltz (“Die Donau so blau, so blau, so blau…”), knowing when the Ottomans unsuccessfully laid siege to Vienna (1529 and 1683), and learning about the city’s best-known boulevard, the Ringstrasse. While I might not recall all…
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Of American Pharaoh, Louis Brandeis and 10 Other Things About (Jewish) Kentucky
1 11,300 Jews live in Kentucky. 2 Henry Hyman was reportedly the first Jew to settle in Louisville, Kentucky. In 1826, he opened a tavern called the Western Coffeehouse, where he sold delicious, non-kosher food and the finest liquor in town. 3 Jewish communal life began in Kentucky in the 1830s. 4 The first Jewish…
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In ‘Alexandrian Summer,’ Their Hearts Belong to Egypt
Alexandrian Summer By Yitzhak Gormezano Goren Translated by Yardenne Greenspan New Vessel Press, 200 pages, $15.99 Late in Israeli writer Yitzhak Gormezano Goren’s luminous 1978 novel “Alexandrian Summer,” which has just been published for the first time in English in a fluid translation by Yardenne Greenspan, a tired rabbi watches disapprovingly as a group of…
The Latest
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Could Israel’s ‘Fauda’ Be Television’s Next ‘Homeland’?
Israeli television has made some major contributions to the global television market in recent years. Shows such as “B’Tipul” and “Hatufim” have achieved worldwide acclaim, either in their original formats or as their Emmy award-winning adaptations, “In Treatment” and “Homeland.” Now, attention has turned toward “Fauda,” the first Israeli political action drama series to bring…
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POEM: Dwelling Amulet (love sonnet to light & psalm 27)
In the beginning I was given everything And what did I do With myself and your treasures? Only one thing I ask Animates my coming and going Inside your house In the beginning, Given inner speech Enfold us within your sanctuary of hands Inside the tent of every wish Encamped, beloved
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Film & TV 13 Jewish Things To Binge-Watch For Pride Month
When it comes to Jewish and Israeli pride, is a frequent topic of discussion. But from campy and ridiculous to serious and heart-wrenching, Israelis have created some amazing pieces of LGBTQ culture. In celebration of pride month, we bring you some movies and musicians you may not have heard of but should definitely discover. A…
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Excavating Poland’s Last Remaining Mezuzas From Before the Holocaust
Helena Czernek and Aleksander Prugar have been trekking around Poland both as artists and as archaeologists: They’re searching for traces of mezuzas on Jewish homes that were abandoned or destroyed during the Holocaust. For the artists’ project, “Mezuzah From This Home,” the duo first identifies what Prugar calls “marks of existence” on doorframes across the…
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Janet Hadda, Biographer of I.B. Singer, Dies at 69
Janet Ruth Hadda — Yiddish professor, psychoanalyst, and biographer — died in Los Angeles on June 23, 2015. She was 69. The cause was metastatic cancer. Dr. Hadda was born December 23, 1945, the daughter of refugees from Nazi Germany, Dr. George and Annemarie (Kohn) Hadda. Her grandfather was Dr. Siegmund Hadda, the last Director…
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Remembering Janet Hadda Whose Spirit and Scholarship Endure
I will always remember Janet Hadda as the petite and tenacious woman who gave the Hebrew University professor Khone Shmeruk a run for his money. Those who knew her from the YIVO building on Fifth Avenue and 86th Street (Dina Abramowicz, Shoshke Erlich, Mikhl Herzog, Bina Weinreich) weren’t at all surprised that she could hold…
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Film & TV HBO’s Larry Kramer Doc Isn’t Just Good. It’s Important.
It wasn’t so long ago that gay men were vilified by American society at large. Back in the 1980s, when the AIDS epidemic surfaced, priests railed against them, claiming the disease was God’s revenge for sinful lifestyle choices. That, of course, has changed — mostly. While there are still regular examples of anti-gay sentiments (and…
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The Taxonomy of the Jewish Casket
“One of the traditions is that everybody is equal in death, so you would think that all Jewish people would go in a pine box. However, we make a lot of very nice high-end caskets,” explains Lou Tobia Jr., the third generation owner of the New England Casket Company in Boston. Almost half of his…
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