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 Nirenberg Traces The Long, Bewildering History of Anti-Semitism
● Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition By David Nirenberg W.W. Norton & Company, 624 pages, $35 Anti-Semitism’s eternal recurrence is so puzzling that it can invite mystification. Even the secularist Yiddish poet Yitzchak Katznelson, grappling with the Nazi extermination of European Jewry, resorted to religious myth. In his “Song of the Murdered Jewish People” (completed shortly…
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What Makes a Jewish Joke Jewish?
● No Joke: Making Jewish Humor By Ruth R. Wisse Princeton University Press, 292 pages, $24.95 As a well-known Yiddish expression has put it, “A joke is a half-truth.” Ruth Wisse presents readers of her latest work, “No Joke: Making Jewish Humor,” with half-a-book. The effective half offers a general audience analysis of literature and…
The Latest
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Books My Family’s Reaction to ‘Fame Shark’
Royal Young’s debut memoir “Fame Shark” will be released June 2013 from Heliotrope Books. Young contributes to Interview Magazine, New York Post, BOMB Magazine and The Lo Down. His blog posts are featured on The Arty Semite courtesy of the Jewish Book Council and My Jewish Learning’s Author Blog Series. For more information on the…
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Everybody Knows The Cliche Of The Jewish Mother — But What About Jewish Dads?
Happy Jewish Father’s Day — and you know what that means, right? Well, actually, you probably don’t. Because unlike Jewish mothers, who’ve got a stereotype that just won’t die (not even if it goes outside without a sweater), Jewish fathers are not defined as any one thing. Which got me wondering: Why not? Why are…
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It’s a Hebrew Thing — You Get It or You Don’t
In last week’s column, I argued, in discussing the Hebrew word sefirah, that the kabbalistic doctrine of the 10 sefirot or emanations of the divinity was not a result of Christian influence. This week, going from the cosmic to the strictly linguistic, I’ve been led to the conclusion that a well-known rabbinical expression definitely was…
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Haman of Ellis Island Resigns
Forward Looking Back brings you the stories that were making news in the Forward’s Yiddish paper 100, 75, and 50 years ago. Check back each week for a new set of illuminating and edifying clippings from the Jewish past. 100 years ago 1913 Finally, the Haman of Ellis Island has met his end. Now that…
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Books Thinking in Aramaic, Writing in English
Earlier this week, Janice Weizman wrote about writing historical fiction and the bildungsroman and the Jewish woman. Her blog posts are featured on The Arty Semite courtesy of the Jewish Book Council and My Jewish Learning’s Author Blog Series. For more information on the series, please visit: “Many artists are ‘underground’,” a writing instructor of…
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The Enduring Jewish Traditions of Philanthropy and Collecting
Most people, if asked to define what the modernization of the Jews entailed, would no doubt refer to the ways in which they took to urban life, made much of higher education, prospered economically, and exchanged Yiddish and Ladino for English (or French or German). They’d be right to think so. But if I had…
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Books Writing a Novel About Writing a Novel
Earlier this week, David Samuel Levinson wrote about the beautiful catastrophe that is New York City and dedicating his first novel, “Antonia Lively Breaks the Silence” (Algonquin Books). His blog posts are featured on The Arty Semite courtesy of the Jewish Book Council and My Jewish Learning’s Author Blog Series. For more information on the…
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Books I Was Born a Rambling Man
On Tuesday, David Samuel Levinson wrote about dedicating his first novel, “Antonia Lively Breaks the Silence” (Algonquin Books). His blog posts are featured on The Arty Semite courtesy of the Jewish Book Council and My Jewish Learning’s Author Blog Series. For more information on the series, please visit: When someone asks me where I’m from,…
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British Comedy Legend Jonathan Lynn Brings Unique Style to Los Angeles
‘Comedy is often created by outsiders,” Jonathan Lynn said, speaking of growing up in the only Jewish family in the English spa town of Bath in the 1940s. The British-born director of such comic screen romps as “My Cousin Vinny” and “The Whole Nine Yards,” as well as the popular BBC comedy series “Yes, Prime…
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Most Popular
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Fast Forward Why the Antisemitism Awareness Act now has a religious liberty clause to protect ‘Jews killed Jesus’ statements
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Culture Trump wants to honor Hannah Arendt in a ‘Garden of American Heroes.’ Is this a joke?
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News School Israel trip turns ‘terrifying’ for LA students attacked by Israeli teens
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Fast Forward The invitation said, ‘No Jews.’ The response from campus officials, at least, was real.
In Case You Missed It
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Culture Cardinals are Catholic not Jewish — so why do they all wear yarmulkes?
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Fast Forward Halal restaurant opening in Congress is like ‘Muslim conquest of Jerusalem,’ says GOP congressman
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Fast Forward Germany formally classifies far-right AfD party as extremist, in blow to Nazi-linked populist movement
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Fast Forward Trump taps shock jock Sid Rosenberg and a Haredi newspaper publisher for Holocaust Memorial Council
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