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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Actor Omar Sharif Won’t Compete in World Bridge Olympics with Israelis
1913 •100 years ago Jews of Kiev Evicted Reports from Russia reveal that the Jews of Kiev are under renewed attack. An official administrative order announced that 580 Jewish families must leave the city immediately. The order was issued in the wake of revelations that a large of number of Jewish families had obtained residence…
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Books 100 Years Later, Revisiting Franz Kafka’s ‘The Trial’ and World War I
This year marks the centennial of two landmarks of modernity: World War I and Franz Kafka’s “The Trial.” Both events have their origins in 1914, but neither ever truly ended: Upon his death in 1924, Kafka left behind an unfinished manuscript, while the peacemakers at Versailles left behind an unresolved war. Beyond their incomplete natures,…
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Solving a Linguistic Mystery as Quickly as ‘Poof’
It would be ironic if the single sentence for which John Kerry, an articulate politician, were to be remembered one day were “Poof!” And yet Mr. Kerry’s pithy description of a breakdown in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations whose failure surprised no one but himself may go down in history as his most memorable utterance. What is surprising…
The Latest
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Books Seeking Bernard Malamud on His 100th Birthday
It’s very hard to persuade a friend watching the clock in an office in Midtown Manhattan that at your artist colony in southeastern Wyoming, you — who are eating food made by a country-club chef, sleeping in a free bed, writing in a handsome studio, and taking walks in a landscape of religious beauty —…
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When the Family Doctor Turns Out To Be Josef Mengele
“The German Doctor,” a film that Argentinian filmmaker Lucia Puenzo adapted from her novel “Wakolda,” begins with a chance meeting: A mysterious, good-looking doctor and a teenager at a service station. Soon, the doctor is asking for directions, following her family through winding Patagonia roads to a beautiful vacation spot. While the doctor is based…
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Film & TV Penka Kouneva Wants to Blast Hollywood’s Celluloid Ceiling
Courtesy Penka Kouneva // From left to right, Jeremy Borum, Penka Kouneva and Nathan Furst working on the Dreamworks feature “Need for Speed” At six, Penka Kouneva was playing piano in her hometown of Sofia, Bulgaria. At 12, she was composing music for children’s theater. At 17, a song of hers won a Japanese competition…
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The Secret Jewish History of William Shakespeare
Had William Shakespeare never died, he would be turning 450 years old this month, which would put him in biblical territory for longevity. As it turns out, that’s not necessarily such an unusual place for him to be. While little is known about the historical Shakespeare, there is much to suggest in his work and…
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Music Birthright Eases ‘Jewish’ Definition as Applications for Free Israel Trip Dip
(Haaretz) — Concerned about declining interest in its free 10-day trips to Israel, Taglit-Birthright has hired a marketing agency to seek out new participants, targeting college students with little or no connection to the Jewish community. According to figures obtained by Haaretz, registration among North American Jews for Birthright’s summer trips dropped by more than…
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Music Spoon-Bending Psychic Uri Geller Is Face of Israeli ‘Be Prepared’ Campaign
Celebrity psychic Uri Geller is the beaming new face of Israeli disaster-readiness, starring in army-sponsored TV and Internet advertisements on how to take shelter from missile attacks or earthquakes. Launched on Wednesday, the campaign marks Geller’s return to his native country from Britain and aims to keep Israelis vigilant, though public fears of any imminent…
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Reb Zalman’s December Song
● The December Project By Sara Davidson HarperCollins Publishers, 208 pages, $25.99 Founded in the aftermath of the Sabbatean heresy, early Hasidism was a paragon of paradox. Its early 19th-century adherents, particularly those of the philosophically rigorous movement Chabad, were uniters of opposites — heaven and earth, being and nothingness, concealment and revelation. The greatest…
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Chasing Dr. Aribert Heim, the ‘Butcher of Mauthausen’
● The Eternal Nazi: From Mauthausen to Cairo, the Relentless Pursuit of SS Doctor Aribert Heim By Nicholas Kulish and Souad Mekhennet Doubleday, 250 pages, $27.95 In “The Eternal Nazi,” journalists Nicholas Kulish and Souad Mekhennet tell the gripping story of the decades-long pursuit of Nazi doctor Aribert Heim and, in the process, offer a…
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Yiddish פֿאַר וואָס הערט מען ניט וועגן דעם גלעצנדיקן וווּקס פֿון דער ישׂראל־בערזע? Why aren’t we hearing about the dramatic growth of the Israeli stock market?
וואָלט דער אָפּרוף געווען אַנדערש, ווען דער ציל פֿון די טעראָריסטן וואָלט ניט געווען ייִדן, נאָר אַן אַנדער גרופּע?
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