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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How Iranian-Jewish Women Started a Writers’ Revolution
The Jews of Iran: The History, Religion and Culture of a Community in the Islamic World Edited by Houman Sarshar I.B. Tauris, 264 pages, $99 Of the 80,000 or so Jews still living in Iran when the 1979 Islamic revolution occurred, the vast majority have fled, leaving a community of about 20,000 to 25,000, according…
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Books Greener Pastures for Treasured Cookbook Shop
Bookshop owner Bonnie Slotnick took a quick break from packing to have her picture taken outside the 10th Street store. Photographs by Liza Schoenfein I was happy to read at the end of last week that Bonnie Slotnick Cookbooks, the beloved little shop on West 10th Street that recently lost its lease, had found new…
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Like Father, Like Daughter? Hopefully Not When It Comes to ‘I’m Gonna Pray for You.’
He’s been discoursing for a while, this character called David Berryman—né Bergenstein — drinking and smoking (the pot and coke will come later) and telling well-worn stories, and now he’s in high dudgeon over the suggestion he might have regrets. “Everything I did — every decision I made — led me right here — right…
The Latest
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Al Pacino Plays a Philip Roth Character Gone Literally Insane in ‘The Humbling’
It’s always a mystery why anyone would want to turn a Philip Roth novel into a movie. Despite the author’s immense talent and celebrity, his writing — rich with ideas and emotional conflict, light on concrete action — doesn’t lend itself to the big screen. Recent attempts to render his books cinematically, like “The Human…
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Books Book Critics Nods to Roz Chast, Gary Shteyngart
Photo: Martyna Starosta Forward 50 members Roz Chast and Gary Shteyngart are among the 30 nominees for the 2014 National Book Critics Circle Awards. The award, given to books in the areas of autobiography, biography, criticism, fiction, nonfiction and poetry, is given by the book critics and book review editors of the National Book Critics…
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Viva Las (Oscar) Goodman
There is a box of candy on Oscar Goodman’s desk. Goldenberg’s Peanut Chews. His face lights up at their mention. They’re from Philadelphia, he says. “I love them. I have at least one a day.” Goodman — former mob lawyer, former Las Vegas mayor, current Sin City spokesman — is happily ensconced behind his desk…
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When Dylan Does It Better Than Sinatra (Assuming You Don’t Care For Sinatra)
So you know where I’m coming from, I never got the whole Frank Sinatra thing. “On the Town?” Yeah, I liked that. “From Here to Eternity?” Sure, that too. But the whole tough guy “I’ll sock you in the jaw” persona has always been a turn-off. When Apple put him on its “Think Different” posters,…
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Why European NGO’s and the Red Cross Are Real Enemies in Israel
My real name, to those of you who know me by other names, is Tuvia. I was born into an extreme anti-Zionist, ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Israel known as the “Hazon-Ishnikes,” among people who are certain that they are the people closest to God and that they are his only representatives on earth. Simply put,…
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How To Leave the Neo-Nazis in Two Easy Lessons — and One Hard One
Four years ago, when he was the leader of a neo-Nazi group in Thuringia, a federal state in central Germany, Steven Hartung organized demonstrations and other political actions that promoted extreme right-wing ideology. He believed that ethno-pluralism — a view supporting ethnic or racial separation and opposing cultural diversity — was the only way to…
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Of Sammy Davis, Sheldon Adelson, Blue Jeans and 9 Other Facts About (Jewish) Nevada
1) The first Jewish synagogue in Nevada was founded in 1921 in Reno. Temple Emanu-El still serves the city’s Jewish residents. 2) Jacob W. Davis, a Jewish immigrant and tailor, invented jeans at his shop in Reno in 1871 when a customer paid $3 to commission a pair of sturdy work pants for her husband….
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Why ‘Honeymoon in Vegas’ Is Quintessential Jewish Mother Story
The 1989 movie “New York Stories” is composed of three short films about New York City. In Woody Allen’s segment, “Oedipus Wrecks,” his character’s overbearing Jewish mother disappears as part of a magic show — but rather than reappearing after the trick is finished instead is transformed into a celestial presence hovering over Manhattan, continually…
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Yiddish רבנישע כּתבֿים ווײַזן אומגעריכטע פֿאַרבינדונגען צווישן ייִדיש און לאַדינאָRabbinical texts reveal surprising links between Yiddish and Ladino
לויט אַ נײַ בוך פֿאָרשונגען האָבן טראַדיציאָנאַליסטן אין ביידע עדות געהאַלטן, אַז ייִדן מוזן אָפּהיטן זייער גערעדט לשון
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