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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The Gospel According to British-Jewish Author Naomi Alderman
● The Liars’ Gospel By Naomi Alderman Little, Brown and Company, 320 pages, $25.99 It is odd that in a media-saturated time when people seem unable to remember important events that happened last week, much less the decades-long story of how we got into the economic and political mess we’re in, historical storytelling flourishes. Whether…
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Rebecca Dana Puts Rabbinical Spin on Sex and the City Lifestyle
● Jujitsu Rabbi and the Godless Blonde Rebecca Dana Amy Einhorn Books, 288 pages, $25.95 “Jujitsu Rabbi and the Godless Blonde,” Rebecca Dana’s chronicle of the time she spent sharing a Crown Heights apartment with Cosmo, a martial arts enthusiast and spiritually confused Hasid, is a study in contradictions. Take, for instance, the odd-couple pairing…
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Robert Frost Rarely Went to Church, But Poet Had Personal Rabbi
Although Robert Frost rarely attended church, America’s supreme poet of pastoral life had his own personal rabbi. Victor Reichert, rabbi of the Rockdale Avenue Temple, in Cincinnati, was one of Frost’s closest friends and confidants in the final decades of the poet’s life. Now, Reichert’s son, Jonathan Reichert, has donated his father’s trove of letters,…
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Books Eight Magical Realist Novels by Jewish Women
It’s no surprise to voracious readers of female-authored fiction that the magical realism genre has flourished by the pens of the fairer sex. Readers with some enthusiasm for the genre may associate it with women of color in particular. For example, there’s Isabel Allende and Laura Esquivel, following in the Latin American tradition of Jorge…
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Meet David Nunes Carvalho, the Jewish Investigator Who Rivaled Sherlock Holmes
Long before the advent of DNA evidence, it was the trail of ink, not blood, which often provided detectives with a direct, chemical connection between criminals and their crimes. A century ago, David Nunes Carvalho, a renowned expert on ink, handwriting and print, became a central figure in some of the world’s most sensational investigations,…
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Books The Nuts and Bolts of Writing
Earlier this week, Jessica Soffer wrote about learning to breathe and a precious treat from the Passover seder plate. 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: Quite recently, someone asked me about…
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Books Author Blog: Learning to Breathe
Earlier this week, Jessica Soffer wrote about a precious treat from the Passover seder plate. 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: I needed something. Everyone was dying. Or at least a…
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Passover’s ‘The Song of Songs’ Is Correct Name, Not ‘Solomon’s Song’
One of the customs of the week of Passover is the reading in the synagogue — done at different times in different traditions — of the biblical poem of “The Song of Songs.” “The Song of Songs,” or “The Song of Solomon,” as it is called by the King James and other English Bibles, is…
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Books Projected Prayers Grow in Popularity as Part of Jewish ‘Visual Tefillah’ Services
Several years ago, Rabbi Lance Sussman, spiritual leader of the Reform synagogue Keneseth Israel, in Elkins Park, Pa., received the grim news that he was going blind. After surgery, eye patches and other treatments, his sight miraculously improved. The experience left him with a profound appreciation for the visual in life. “We live in an…
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Comedian Eddie Cantor Threatened by Nazis
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 As Easter-time pogrom threats hover over the Jews of Greece, immigrants from…
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How Don Byron Brought Klezmer Music And Mickey Katz Back To Life
A pre-eminent contemporary multi-instrumentalist and composer rooted in jazz, Don Byron has engaged with a wild variety of musical styles — from rap to neo-classical, funk to heavy metal — and is currently touring with the New Gospel Quintet, exploring the heritage of African-American spirituals It was his encounter with klezmer, however, and his tribute…
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