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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The Hardware Store Synagogue
I wandered the aisles of the Ace Hardware store in downtown Donaldsonville, La. (population 7,473), trying vainly to discern anything that suggested the building’s unique provenance. But I could detect nothing among the paints and nails and garden supplies that overflowed on the shelves and walls to reflect that this building had been Congregation Bikur…
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Martin Scorsese’s Jewish Bookfellas
“I’ve been reading, or trying to read, the New York Review of Books since 1963, since I was a student,” Martin Scorsese explained at last month’s Berlin Film Festival, where his “Untitled New York Review of Books Documentary” screened as a work-in-progress. “I saw it on a newsstand and it looked very different than the…
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The Bedouin Zionist Who Keeps Israel Safe
For days on end I have spent my time with countless Bedouins in the Negev, brought there by various NGO activists who wanted me to see how badly the Bedouins are treated by the Israeli Jews, and now I feel it’s time I meet a Bedouin who loves to represent himself, and his people, without…
The Latest
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Anne Frank Theater Mixes Tragic Tale With Glitz and Fine Dining
(JTA) — To millions worldwide, she is a symbol of heroism and a haunting reminder of the dangers of discrimination. But for one Dutch entertainment firm, Anne Frank is a brand name powerful enough to merit millions of dollars of investment. Last week, the Amsterdam-based production company Imagine Nation announced plans to open a huge…
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Israeli Sniper’s Anguished Look Into Crosshairs
The team — two of us snipers, a spotter, the lieutenant, and a driver, sit around a table in the small office of Major W, commander of this special infantry unit. I examine a grainy black-and-white photo that’s being passed around — a chubby middle-aged man in a jacket with white sleeves standing in a…
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How the Jews Made America Irish
Even with St. Patrick’s Day upon us, it’s hard to say just when and where the first major alliance between the Jews and the Irish was forged in this country, but the Chicago office of Dankmar Adler, architect and engineer, back in 1879, might be a good place to start. There, Adler decided to hire…
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What Makes a Jewish Poet?
● The Bloomsbury Anthology of Contemporary Jewish Poetry Edited by Deborah Ager and M.E. Silverman Bloomsbury Academic, 272 pages, $120 ● THE EIGHTH DAY By Geoffrey Hartman Texas Tech University Press, 128 pages, $21.95 ‘What does it mean to be a Jewish American poet? Posed as baldly as that”— so wrote the poet and critic…
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Strange Tie Between Jew’s Harps and Circumcision Clamps
Jacob Sivak, Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the School of Optometry at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, writes: “The Jew’s harp is a simple but common musical instrument that I acquired a few years ago, and I am intrigued by its name. Although I can find no reference to any linkage between it and Jews…
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Backwards Looking Forward
2064 Major Court Case in Isratine The Jeruquds Waqf-din, a Muslim-Jewish court involved in the adjudication of religious-related disputes among the citizens of the Islamic-Jewish Republic of Isratine, stands to rule on a major case that is likely to affect the large number of marriages in the country. The complicated suit, brought by Fadila-Shayna and…
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A Shooting After a Shvitz in a Lower East Side Bathhouse
1913 •100 years ago Shooting in the Shvitz Isaac Schwimmer, a civil engineer who lives on East 7th Street, was taking a shvitz in the Turkish baths on Third Street near Avenue A. Apparently overcome by the heat, Schwimmer fell asleep in the steam room. He awoke to find his diamond ring missing. Furious, he…
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Remembering Art Raymond, Who Provided Yiddishkeit in a Black Sombrero
Art Raymond, who died on February 21 at age 91 in Boynton Beach, Florida, exemplifies the fluidly shifting indentities of past generations of American Jewish performers. An esteemed radio host and nightclub emcee, Raymond (born Rosen in 1922 in Brownsville, Brooklyn) made his name as a specialist in both Jewish and Latin music. When he…
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