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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That time Yiddishists met extraterrestrials a short while ago in a galaxy not far away
It was a normal summer internship at the Yiddish Book Center ... until the Jedi invaded our turf
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Israel Philharmonic Makes Spectacular Debut in Its New Home
It was a who’s who of Tel Aviv and New York Jewish culture vultures, politicians, philanthropists and, yes, music lovers from around the world. Thirteen years in the making, more than 77 years since its founding, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra was inaugurating its new home at Heichal Hatarbut. Thanks to the city of Tel Aviv…
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Books When 50 Happens to Good People
Actress, author, and activist Annabelle Gurwitch is the author of three books: “Autumn Leaves,” “You Say Tomato, I Say Shut Up,” and “Fired!” Her comedic memoir for Blue Rider imprint at Penguin will be published in Spring 2014. Her blog posts are featured on The Arty Semite courtesy of the Jewish Book Council and My…
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Books The Mystery of the Hebrew Detective
D. A. Mishani is an Israeli crime writer, editor, and literary scholar, specializing in the history of detective fiction. His first detective novel, “The Missing File,” was published in by Harper. 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…
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Books Radio Kvetcher Jonathan Goldstein Is Still Learning How To Grow Up
Montreal humorist Jonathan Goldstein, 43, so often pairs kvetching with kvelling that it’s become a signature of the writer, whose joint Canadian and United States citizenship has him bestriding North America’s border. When I arrived to interview him at the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., where he produces his meta-reality radio show “WireTap” — in its ninth…
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Books The 12 New (Jewish) Books For Summer
Summertime, when the living is said to be easier and vacations beckon, can favor us with more reading time. But heat doesn’t necessarily mean light — and not all our book suggestions, split evenly between new releases in fiction and nonfiction, are typical beach fare. Though cineplexes fill with frothy comedies and special-effects epics, publishing…
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Books Interpreting the Holocaust Dreams of Literary Puzzle Master Georges Perec
● La Boutique Obscure By Georges Perec Translated from the French by Daniel Levin Becker Melville House, 214 pages, $18.95 The Anglophone world is currently undergoing one of its periodical revivals — this time, of the panegyric experimentalism and formalist frolics of the French avant-garde literary collective Oulipo. The Oulipo (Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle), a…
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Books Debut Novelist Helene Wecker Dreams of Jinnis (and Golems)
● The Golem and the Jinni By Helene Wecker HarperCollins. 496 pages, $26.99 In “The Golem and the Jinni,” Helene Wecker mines the mysticism of two peoples to masterfully create a magical world out of clay and fire. Her story is so inventive, so elegantly written, so well constructed, it is hard to believe that…
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All Jewish on the Western Front
The Autry National Center is a gem. Tucked away in Los Angeles’s sprawling Griffith Park, the museum is packed with exhibits about the American West. There’s a stagecoach and a 19th-century fire engine, along with vintage guns and guitars. My favorite installation is the ornate saloon, all mahogany and brass, which provides a taste of…
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Books Discovering Louisa May Alcott’s Jewish History on Portuguese Tour
Louisa May Alcott was often told as a child that her dark hair and dark eyes came from her Sephardic Jewish ancestry. Her mother, Abigail May Alcott, who had similar coloring, had learned this from her father, Joseph May, a late 18th-century Boston businessman whose Portuguese Jewish ancestors immigrated to Sussex, England, just before 1500….
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Books Growing Up Jewish in Christian Suburbia
By the time I was 5, I was already an outcast. It was the early 1960s, and I was part of the only Jewish family in a decidedly Christian suburb of Waltham, Mass. Brandeis University, the only thing Jewish about Waltham, was 20 minutes away. We had moved to Waltham because we couldn’t stay in…
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Books Rutu Modan’s Secrets and Revelations
The Property By Rutu Modan, translated by Jessica Cohen Drawn & Quarterly, 232 pages, $24.95 The past takes many forms in Rutu Modan’s graphic novel “The Property.” There is Regina, an elderly woman returning to Poland from Israel for the first time in over 60 years; overzealous re-enactors encountered by her granddaughter Mica on the…
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Film & TV In a film from Israel, three characters in search of a love language
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Fast Forward All San Diego Jewish organizations pull out of Pride festival over Kehlani performance, citing ‘serious safety concerns’
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Fast Forward Harvard Divinity School appoints professor who has criticized Zionism to new Jewish studies role
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