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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7 Best Scenes From Three Decades of Coen Brother Films
This year is the thirtieth anniversary of the Joel and Ethan Coen’s first film, “Blood Simple.” Since then, the pair have written or directed eighteen of the wackiest, funniest, and most memorable movies of all time. Here are seven of the greatest scenes from the Coens’ impressive catalogue: 1. Fargo – “He’s a little guy,…
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What Do We Mean by ‘Erev Rosh Hashanah?’
Seth Cohen sends an email from Mamaroneck, New York, accompanied by an Internet link to an English-language advertisement, run in Israel, for a communal “Erev Rosh Hashanah” dinner in Tel Aviv. And Mr. Cohen asks, “Is an expression like erev rosh ha-shanah in the sense of ‘Rosh Hashanah evening’ proper colloquial Israeli Hebrew or an…
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Books Talking With an Angel in Suburban Hell
An Amorous Discourse in the Suburbs of Hell By Deborah Levy And Other Stories, 96 pages Whether writing with barely suppressed rage or achieving a brisk comic pace, the writing of Deborah Levy rarely lets the reader grow complacent. Her earliest novels, “Beautiful Mutants” and “Swallowing Geography,” channeled Thatcher-era fury through surrealistic modes and landscapes….
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8 Facts About Jewish Iowa
1. Iowa’s first naturalized citizen from a foreign country, Alexander Levi of France, was Jewish. He was naturalized in 1837. 2. Iowa resident Moses Bloom, who served as mayor of Iowa City from 1873 to 1875, was the first Jewish mayor of a major American city. He was also the first Jew to serve in…
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Iowa’s Fields of Midwestern Jewish Dreams
Synagogues in rural Iowa are few and far between for good reason. Out of almost three million residents in the 26th largest state, there are no more than 6,000 Jews, and almost half of them them live in the capital, Des Moines. So few Jews live — and die —in Iowa that the Jewish Funeral…
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The Secret Jewish History of Bruce Springsteen — on His 65th Birthday
As recently as a year ago this past autumn, The New York Times misspelled the Boss’s last name as “Springstein,” reminding those of us old enough to remember that, early in Bruce Springsteen’s career, it was commonly thought — or secretly hoped by some — that this rock ’n’ roll messiah was Jewish. That rumor…
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Hollywood’s Most Misunderstood and Forgotten Jewish Movie Returns
In the face of Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in Germany, film scholars have long debated about why American moviemakers assiduously avoided dealing with Nazism and anti-Semitism in their films. Some point to the fact that Hollywood studio heads wanted to avoid controversial film fare. Others note that these moguls, most of whom were Jewish,…
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Jewish Enviro-Artists Have the Whole World in Their Hands
Mierle Laderman Ukeles seemed overwhelmed. She had just returned from a month-long stay in Israel at the height of the horrors, and was now playing catch-up as the official, but unsalaried, artist-in-residence at the New York City Sanitation Department, a gig she has held since 1977. As a longtime champion of the department, Ukeles has…
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When Anya Ulinich Plays the Dating Game
● Lena Finkle’s Magic Barrel By Anya Ulinich Penguin Books, 362 pages, $18 If the title of Anya Ulinich’s graphic novel, “Lena Finkle’s Magic Barrel,” sounds familiar, you are probably thinking of Bernard Malamud’s story “The Magic Barrel,” which concerns one Leo Finkle, a rabbinical student who, on the verge of ordination, must find a…
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Is Garment Industry a Relic of Yesteryear?
A lament: I can’t find a thing to wear. On second thought, let me amend that so that it reads more truthfully and accurately: I can’t find anything to buy — and it is not for want of trying, I assure you. My bellyaching has cause. As summer takes its leave, I eagerly peruse the…
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3 Jewish Writers Nominated for National Book Awards
The National Book Award long list of nominees for 2014 were announced Wednesday, and three books by Jewish writers were nominated. In the nonfiction category, the graphic memoir “Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant” by Roz Chast, a cartoonist for The New Yorker, and “The Innovators: How A Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks…
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