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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Books
The Most Jewish True Crime Book Ever
Photo: Germain McMicking/Riverhead Books John Safran’s literary debut, “God’ll Cut You Down: The Tangled Tale of A White Supremacist, A Black Hustler, A Murder, and How I Lost Year in Mississippi,” arrived in the U.S. with momentum. The Australian Crime Writers Association had already named it the best true crime book of 2014. New York…
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Books The Year of the Former Soviet Author
In the recently published memoir “A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka,” Lev Golinkin recounts the story of his family’s 1989 departure from the rapidly disintegrating Soviet Union. The Golinkins make their way to America, relying on the kindness of strangers; unsure of what they might find, they are guided largely by the…
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Reconsidering Louis Ginzberg’s Legendary ‘Legends of the Jews’
Louis Ginzberg’s Legends of the Jews: Ancient Jewish Folk Literature Reconsidered edited by Galit Hasan-Rokem and Ithamar Gruenwald Wayne State University Press, 224 pages, $44.99 The legacy of the Talmudist Louis Ginzberg exemplifies the benefits of lovability in Jewish studies. Those familiar with the life of Henrietta Szold (1860-1945), founder of Hadassah and Ihud, the…
The Latest
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The Year Spin Doctors Lost Control of the Spin
This was a year when stories of violence and injustice refused to die quietly. Near-universal access to high-quality cell phone video and social media has amplified the voices of the powerless so much that the powerful lost control of the spin. In early March, the Ukrainian region of Crimea was inundated by uniformed men without…
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Books ‘Jewish Oprah’ Carolyn Starman Hessel Turns Page From Jewish Book Council
(JTA) — When Carolyn Starman Hessel joined the New York-based Jewish Book Council in 1994 – at the request of friend Marsha Posner – she knew nothing about the publishing world. Since then, she’s been called the “Jewish Oprah” for her ability to help authors find audiences, and has enjoyed enormous clout and influence among…
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Undermining Nazi Ideal of Racial Purity — in Black and White
(Haaretz) — Rainer Hoess, the grandson of Rudolf Hoess, the Kommandant of Auschwitz, stands at the barbed-wire fence of Buchenwald concentration camp. The tattooed numbers belong to Auschwitz survivors who have become friends over the years. Aminata Belli, a German woman who looks more African than Aryan, poses outside the 1939 monument glorifying German colonialism in…
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Bullets Fired at Paris Kosher Restaurant
A kosher restaurant in Paris was fired on in an attack that is similar to one on a Paris synagogue days earlier. Bullet holes were discovered Wednesday in the window of the Al Haeche kosher restaurant located in the 19th district of northeastern Paris. The attack reportedly occurred Tuesday night, the JSSNews website reported. The…
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Conflict Kitchen Stirs the Pot in Pittsburgh
It’s not that Jon Rubin and Dawn Weleski were surprised by the controversy over the latest version of their ongoing restaurant/art project, Conflict Kitchen. In the four and a half years since they set up a takeout window to serve the cuisines of conflict zones around the world, they’d seen their fair share of debate….
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Resisting Christmas in North Dakota
At the first poinsettia sighting, many of my Jewish friends from New York or Los Angeles recall youthful feelings of exclusion. To them I say, get over it. If you want to know authentic Christmas envy, try growing up Jewish in a frostbitten North Dakota town with a Lutheran church on every other corner. In…
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Unusual Creatures That Ruled the World in 2014
The definitive ten best from the world of unusual creatures by Liana Finck — with apologies to Edward Gorey. SCROLL DOWN TO ENLARGE
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Joe Cocker’s 8 Greatest Jewish Hits
Joe Cocker, the English vocalist who has died at the age of 70, is perhaps best known for his electrifying performance at Woodstock. Or, perhaps, for the Grammy-winning monster hit “Up Where We Belong,” featured in the film “An Officer and a Gentleman.” Throughout his illustrious career, though, Cocker had more than a few encounters…
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