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 ‘Shalom Aleykhem’ Originated and Why It Doesn’t Appear in the Bible
Samuel Sislen of Washington, D.C., writes: “Jews have traditionally greeted one another ‘Shalom aleykhem’ and responded with the words inverted. Arabic speakers greet each other, ‘Salaam aleykum’ and also respond with the words reversed. And I have been told that some Christian services begin with the leader saying, ‘Peace be unto you,’ and the congregation…
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History Made and Broke David Laskin’s Family
The Family: Three Journeys into the Heart of the Twentieth Century By David Laskin Viking Adult, 400 pages, $32 David Laskin descends from the most privileged branch of an Eastern European Jewish clan that, like many, splintered into three groups during the convulsions of the last century. Geography turned out to be destiny: The Americans…
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Army of Jewish Women Nab Tenement Thief Caught in Lower East Side Toilet
1913 •100 years ago An Army of Jewesses A novel type of robbery has been taking place recently in the tenements of Manhattan’s Lower East Side: A tenant goes to a neighbor for a few minutes, and returns home to find something amiss: Someone has sneaked in and stolen something. A clever type of ruse…
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How a German Jew Caught the Kommandant of Auschwitz
Hanns and Rudolf: The True Story of the German Jew Who Tracked Down and Caught the Kommandant of Auschwitz by Thomas Harding Simon & Schuster, 369 Pages, $26 At the end of 2006, journalist Thomas Harding attended the funeral of his great-uncle, Hanns Alexander, in London. After the recital of the Kaddish, two of Hanns’s…
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Al Goldstein Is Dead — and Our Culture Is a Little Poorer
So Al Goldstein is dead. It’s been a long time since I’ve thought about him, but I have to believe that our culture will be poorer without him. Al, if you recall, was the publisher and chief protagonist of the notorious porn magazine Screw. Obscenity isn’t just a description of Screw, it was also the…
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Provocateur Pianist Journeys From Ukraine to Brooklyn and Back
Stuck in his spartan Brooklyn studio on a warm November day, pianist and composer Vadim Neselovskyi seemed a little restless. He had just returned from a six-city tour of Russia and his native Ukraine — a tour on which he and his musical partner, the noted horn player Arkady Shilkloper, packed houses from Moscow to…
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How the Other Half of America Still Lives
The American Way of Poverty: How the Other Half Still Lives By Sasha Abramsky Nation Books, $25, 368 pages In 1962, Michael Harrington, a freelance journalist, published a book that hit the American public like a slap in the face. In a prosperous time, “The Other America: Poverty in the United States” described the tens…
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Do Jewish Photographers See the World Through a Different Lens?
Looking a bit like St. Peter crucified upside down, nine not-yet-plucked chickens dangle from hooks in a storefront window; the alignment of their bound feet evokes hamsas. There’s no warding off the evil eye for these upturned chickens, whose tail feathers are naughtily exposed, or for the two others, which are violently suspended by their…
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Why Jews With Psoriasis Might Think Twice About Seeking Treatment in Jordan
Years ago, Germans, quite many of them, in fact, would fly from their homeland to the Dead Sea in Israel in order to bathe in the world-famous salty waters. Some did it for recreation, others for fitness, and still others to cure themselves of psoriasis. All was fine and dandy until one day the owner…
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Why Israel Is the Place Where Everyone Knows Your Nickname
Israel, we are told by a recent Associated Press article, is a “notoriously close-knit, informal” society, in which “personal boundaries are thin and everyone seems to meddle in everyone’s business.” One thing that proves this, the article states, is the nicknames by which many Israeli politicians are and have been known to their fellow countrymen….
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Everything About Her Was Grand, Even Her Pettiness
December 14 marks the centenary of the American pianist Rosalyn Tureck. The legacy of Tureck, who died in 2003, is being commemorated with CD releases and a recital dedicated to her at New York’s 92nd Street Y by her student, guitarist Sharon Isbin. Critic Harold Schonberg called Tureck the “high priestess” of Johann Sebastian Bach…
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