Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of Jewish culture. Here, you’ll learn about the latest (and sometimes earliest) in Jewish art, music, film, theater, books as well as the secret Jewish history of everything and everyone from The Rolling Stones to…
Culture
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I have seen the future of America — in a pastrami sandwich in Queens
San Wei, which serves pastrami sandwiches along with churros and biang biang noodles, represents an immigrant's fulfillment of the American dream
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David Grossman Creates Yet Another Wrenching Masterpiece
For readers left feeling bereft after David Grossman’s portrayal of the relation between the life of a family and the tragic corrosiveness of Israeli militarism in “To the End of the Land,” here is an audaciously unorthodox work that may serve as an emotional sequel of sorts. If we assumed that Grossman could hardly delve…
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Books Bosnia Through Muslim Eyes
New York author Susan Shapiro and her Muslim physical therapist, Kenan Trebincevic, bonded, and together they wrote the recently published “The Bosnia List: A Memoir of War, Exile, and Return” (Penguin Books). The book tells the story of the Bosnian War through Trebincevic’s eyes. In 1992 he was 12 and living a normal, happy childhood,…
The Latest
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Marlo Thomas Made Me the Man I Am Today
Forty years ago, when Marlo Thomas met with executives at ABC Television after turning in the final cut of “Free to Be… You and Me,” the one-hour special they’d commissioned based on her best-selling children’s album, they told her, in that way the business people who control our media so often do, that they loved…
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Books In Search of a More Perfect Union
A rabbi and an imam walk into a bookstore. That may sound like the first line of a joke, but these aren’t any old rabbi and imam, and they’re not joking around. Rabbi Marc Schneier, the prominent Hampton Synagogue founder and Imam Shamsi Ali, former leader of the Islamic Cultural Center, a major Manhattan mosque,…
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Why Evangelical Christians Are Right To Be Angry About ‘Noah’
When the Biblical Noah listened to that voice in his head (God?) and built a huge ark to survive a flood, he was taking an expensive risk. Paramount Pictures has taken an equally expensive risk — $125 million, give or take — entrusting auteur Darren Aronofsky to somehow bring together epic and indie styles, Biblical…
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A Century of Anti-Semitism on the American College Campus
Antisemitism on the Campus: Past & Present Edited by Eunice G. Pollack Academic Studies Press, 470 pages, $65 In 2012, the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise published “Israel and the Campus,” a study noting 674 anti-Israel events at 108 United States and Canadian universities during the 2011-12 academic year. It remains undetermined how many of these events…
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Darren Aronofsky’s ‘Noah’ Departs From the Bible, But Doesn’t Go Far Enough
For occultists, UFO conspiracy theorists, Atlantis enthusiasts, and eccentric spiritual types of all kinds, the story of Noah provides some tantalizing material. According to the book of Genesis, Noah’s great-grandfather Enoch lived to be 365 years old before he “walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.” “Nephilim” roamed the land while…
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Music Crimea Karaites Back Russia Takeover
(JTA) — Russia’s annexation of Crimea, the strategically critical peninsula that dangles from Ukraine into the Black Sea, has drawn international condemnation. But for the leader of the All-Ukrainian Organization of Crimean Karaites — a group with an unusual heritage that draws from Jewish traditions — joining Russia is a welcome development. “In Crimea, the…
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Music Center for American Progress Partners With Liberal Israeli Think Tank
An influential liberal Washington think tank with ties to the Obama administration is partnering with a progressive Israeli counterpart. The Center for American Progress is cosponsoring its first Israel event on April 1 with Molad: The Center for the Renewal of Israeli Democracy. The symposium will address Israeli and U.S. interests in the Middle East….
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Music Loyola Chicago Student President Vetoes Anti-Israel Resolution
The president of the student government at Loyola University of vetoed an Israel divestment resolution. Pedro Guerrero, president of the Loyola United Student Government Association, or USGA, on Tuesday vetoed the resolution that calls on the university to remove its holdings from eight companies that provide equipment or services to Israel for use in the…
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Israel Philharmonic Celebrates 80 Years of Harmony on U.S. Tour
As the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra embarks on its 14-city tour of the United States under the direction of Zubin Mehta, it’s easy to forget the events of the 1930’s that triggered the creation of what is well established as one of the great orchestras of the world. Soon after Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany…
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