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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Maximilian Schell, Actor Who Played Jews, Nazis — and Both
Considering that the Oscar-winning Austrian-Swiss actor Maximilian Schell, who died on February 1 at age 83, spent WWII safely in neutral Switzerland, it is remarkable that he spent his acting life portraying Nazis, victims of Nazis, and defenders of Nazis, far beyond the requirements of typecasting. Schell’s 1961 best actor Academy Award was for his…
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How Real ‘Monuments Men’ Saved Priceless YIVO Yiddish Treasure
George Clooney may never have worked in the archives of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, a Jewish academic organization dedicated to studying and preserving the culture of east European Jewry, but his new film, Monuments Men, portrays a group of soldiers who was very much responsible for saving and securing a significant portion of…
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Stories Herald Arrival of a Great ‘UnAmerican’ Author
The UnAmericans By Molly Antopol W.W. Norton & Company, 272 pages, $24.95 Molly Antopol’s debut collection of stories, “The UnAmericans,” covers the gamut of 20th century immigrant experience. The settings range from Israel to Ukraine, from California to the Upper West Side. They take place last week and in the middle of the last century….
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Secret Message on a Bottle in Jerusalem’s City of David
A skilled paleographer or specialist in ancient writing can sometimes guess what a mere fragment of that writing is about. A month ago, Haifa University biblical historian Gershon Galil published such a guess in an Israeli journal. If he’s right, not only has he correctly deciphered a puzzling inscription written in the ancient Phoenician/Hebrew alphabet,…
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All The Print That’s Fit To Print
Recently, the Jerusalem Print Workshop — long the first port of call for those working in the medium of print — celebrated its 40th anniversary. For Israeli artists, the only first-rate alternative to the workshop is the [Gottesman Etching Center,][2] which opened its doors in 1993. Now, at the suggestion of Israeli artist Asaf Ben…
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Philip Glass Is Getting Older — for Better or Worse
In the iconic painting by Chuck Close, composer Philip Glass seems to radiate a casual youthfulness. His gaze, slightly askew, possibly slightly stoned, seems at once to confront and look past the viewer. When the painting was made, Glass was a young, avant garde minimalist composer, with most of his great successes yet ahead. He…
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Why Being Barbra Streisand Can Be a Drag
Steven Brinberg does not want to be called Ms. Streisand, Barbra or Babs before he steps onto the stage fully transformed into the singing icon. Until that moment, address him as Steven, please. Indeed, it takes 90 minutes for the metamorphosis to be completed, starting with layers of makeup, followed by dress and wig. The…
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Will This Be the Most Kosher Super Bowl?
It may not be the first strictly kosher Super Bowl, but coming to the New York area for the first time it certainly will have the aroma of a Jewish kitchen in the stadium’s food courts and even the fancier sit-down restaurants and private boxes. “We will be the greenest and most kosher Super Bowl…
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Pete Seeger’s Yiddishkeit
The American folk singer Pete Seeger, who died on January 27 at age 94, is remembered with reverence and affection for popularizing such melodies as the Civil Rights anthem “We Shall Overcome.” (Seeger changed the title from the original “We Will Overcome” on the grounds that “shall” sounds better). Less celebrated is the important role…
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A Short History of Jews and Obscenity
● Unclean Lips: Obscenity, Jews, and American Culture By Josh Lambert NYU Press, 280 pages, $35 Among the Jewish traits I am most proud to be historically and culturally associated with is the way my people obstreperously defend our principles even when doing so goes against our best interests. I love the loudmouths and the…
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Remembering the Legacy of Hugh Nissenson
The passing of Hugh Nissenson, who died last month at age eighty, is an incalculable loss for the literary world. The astonishingly gifted novelist’s reputation never escaped the confines of a small, devoted coterie of readers. There is something vaguely insulting in lauding the legacy of a man of letters and quickly attaching the underappreciated…
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