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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Of World’s Fairs, Cellphones and 10 Other Facts About Jewish Illinois
1) 297,885 Jews live in Illinois. 2) The first recorded Jewish resident in Illinois was John Hays who lived in Cahokia, near the Missouri border. He was a farmer, trader, and soldier, and served as St. Clair County’s postmaster until 1798, when he was appointed sheriff. 3) Music entrepreneur Sol Bloom developed the Midway Plaisance,…
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Etgar Keret Finds Redemption
The Seven Good Years: A Memoir By Etgar Keret Riverhead Books, 192 pages, $26.95 For readers entranced by earlier encounters with Etgar Keret’s enchantingly unsettling portrayals of the absurdities of the human condition, the appearance of his memoir is surely cause for celebration. A recent collection of stories, “Suddenly, a Knock on the Door,” was…
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A Slice of a New Life
Aunt Linda had stocked up on kosher food to last for the duration of the Sabbath. But when Saturday night came around, there was no more kosher food left and I was hungry. On Saturday evening, we couldn’t find an open kosher restaurant, so I suggested that Aunt Linda, my elder brother Israel and I…
The Latest
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Broadway’s 11th Commandment: Thou Shalt Be a Wise-Ass
Two years ago, I took a morning off work to attend my childhood rabbi’s funeral. Ours wasn’t an observant family, and I really didn’t have any relationship with the rabbi beyond my decades-ago bar mitzvah, but Jehiel Orenstein, of Congregration Beth El in South Orange, N.J., was a nice man and a good man, a…
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Revisiting the Jewish Crime of the Century
Compulsion By Meyer Levin Fig Tree Books, 480 pages, $15.95 Why, in 2015, should we be interested in a novel that was written 60 years ago? Moreover, why are we interested in a crime that was committed 90 years ago? When I was growing up in New York in the 1950s, there was no one…
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Film & TV With ‘I Believe in Unicorns,’ Leah Meyerhoff Rewrites The Modern Love Story
Leah Meyerhoff is tired of the straight, white, male perspective. The 35-year old director sat in a small back room at the IFC Center on Tuesday morning and emphatically expressed her desire for new voices to populate the big screen. “I think female filmmakers who have been shut out of the process and whose voices…
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Film & TV A Year for Women as Natalie Portman and Amy Winehouse Debut at Cannes
It’s official. After 67 years of presenting the best of testosterone-driven cinema from the world over, the Cannes Film Festival made the discovery that women too can direct. At least, that’s what I take it the New York Times’ Manohla Dargis meant when she irritatingly dubbed this the “Year of la Femme,” in reference to…
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A Jewish Art Paradise at the Vatican
A Jew visiting Rome with the hope of finding some aspect of her heritage may be drawn to the synagogue on the banks of the Tiber River, or to wander through the ghetto, perhaps to sample carciofi alla Giudia, Jewish-style artichokes. She is unlikely to consider the Vatican to be a source of Jewish art….
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Remembering the Glorious Jewish Humanity of Anne Meara
Anne Meara, who died on May 23 at age 85, was considerably more than one-half of the beloved comedy act Stiller and Meara. Born into a Roman Catholic family, she converted to Reform Judaism in 1961, as she told “People Magazine” in 1977, because she “wanted my children to know who they were.” Those children,…
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Why Satmar Hasidim Are More Liberal Than Liberals
In the past few years I’ve been spending much of my time outside of New York, but now I’m here and I find that coming back is a bit challenging. When I’m in town I’m oblivious to the changes happening around me. Yes, I have eyes and I can see the changes but more often…
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Who Should Replace Alan Gilbert at the New York Philharmonic?
Earlier this year, Alan Gilbert, music director of the New York Philharmonic, announced that he would step down from his job in 2017. With Avery Fisher Hall, the orchestra’s home, scheduled to close in 2019 for two years of renovation, fevered speculation has ensued about his successor. Music directors should quit more often, as such…
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