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 ‘Godot’ We’ve All Been Waiting For
On a recent Friday evening, I was sitting in Manhattan’s Castillo Theatre, on West 42nd Street, waiting to see a production of Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot.” As the house lights went down, and the stage lights went up, the play’s minimalist set came into view: a low mound and a bare tree that looked…
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Peter Orner Will Break Your Heart
Last Car Over the Sagamore Bridge By Peter Orner Little, Brown, 208 pages, $16.99 Every seasoned author has overarching themes that he or she explores, to success or failure, across a series of books. Mediocrity and defeat — twin afflictions that beset the narrators in Peter Orner’s mournful and moving fiction — are worthy companions,…
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Meet Ezra Goldstein, the Oracle of Literary Brooklyn Community
Once upon a time in Zanesville, Ohio, Ezra Goldstein faced a life-altering choice: stay put and help run the family electrical shop, or chase the dream of being a writer. Fast-forward three decades to Brooklyn, N.Y., circa 2010, when Goldstein faced a fork in the road that in many ways mirrored the first. This time,…
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Amos Gitai Confirms Status as Grand Old Man of Israeli Cinema
‘Rhythm is political,” said Amos Gitai, wearing a black t-shirt and classic Ray-Bans as he leaned back in his chair at the Cinecittà Lounge of the Hotel Excelsior at the 70th Venice Film Festival. It was erev Rosh Hashana and the 62-year-old director was there to present “Ana Arabia,” his new film — shot in…
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Books Firestorm Over Canada’s ‘Guys Only’ Prof
If you’ve been anywhere near a Canadian newspaper or news website in the last week, then you’ll know that a scandal involving author and English professor David Gilmour has been dominating the headlines. The dustup is in response to remarks Gilmour made discounting Canadian, women and minority writers. I asked some Canadian Jewish writers and…
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Music A Tale of Two Nights
In late September, a meeting was sponsored by Encounter, a wonderful organization that wants to ensure that all voices in the Israel-Palestine conflict are heard, to listen to Sam Bahour, a very successful Palestinian entrepreneur. Bahour, born to a Palestinian father and a Lebanese-American mother in Youngstown, Ohio, in effect made aliyah to Palestine in…
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Books How Do You Solve a Problem Like Chani Kaufmann?
Chani and Baruch are about to get married. In her heavy, layered dress, the sweat drips down the hollow of her back and collects in pools under her arms. She has never been kissed, never held a boy’s hand. As for Baruch, such is his panic that he cannot even remember Chani’s face, though they…
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Britannia Rules the Words No More in Israel
While waiting for a train in an Israeli station the other day, I was bemused to hear an announcement in English, following a similar one in Hebrew, that said, “Smokers are requested to smoke only in the dedicated area.” I suppose someone meant “designated,” unless the announcement concerned dedicated smokers. This kind of thing isn’t…
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Film & TV Filmmaker Jessie Kahnweiler Sees Satire in Rape
Filmmaker Jessie Kahnweiler, known for her comic spiritual YouTube adventure “Dude, Where’s My Chutzpah?” has a new video out, and viewers don’t know quite what to make of it. It’s called “Meet My Rapist.” The short satirical film is a response to Kahnweiler’s own rape, which occurred almost eight years ago, when she was 20…
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Remembering Composer Vivian Fine on Her Centenary
September 28 marks the centenary of Vivian Fine (1913-2000) a Chicago-born composer who was profoundly influenced by Yiddishkeit. As Fine, who died in 2000 at the age of 87, told the composer Elizabeth Vercoe in a 1992 interview, her mother came from a “Russian Jewish family and started to work herself when she was 14….
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Gary Graffman’s Journey From Jewish Piano Virtuoso to Civil Rights Pioneer
Recent commemorations of the 50th anniversary of the civil rights movement’s landmark March on Washington might not appear to have much in common with the legacy of American Jewish pianist Gary Graffman, who celebrates his 85th birthday on October 14. But history entwined the two in 1964, when one of this country’s most revered musicians…
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