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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The towering Jewish critic who taught me to grok art and hate Picasso
After Max Kozloff died at 91, a New York community came together to remember and to mourn
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4 Under The Radar Jewish Jazz Innovators
Lee Konitz, David Liebman and George Wein — all Jazz Masters of the National Endowment for the Arts — are among a select group of Jewish American cultural figures who, by dint of talent and good fortune, are known to the jazz public and beyond. But others are making substantial contributions to the music, or…
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A Two-Meaning Solution For Zionism
‘The Netanyahu government is the most anti-Zionist Israel has ever had,” Israeli author Amos Oz declared at a gathering for the left-wing Meretz party a few days before Israel’s elections. This is because, Oz said, Zionism means a Jewish state, and unless the two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and…
The Latest
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Where Black and Jewish Identity Merge
Before they had finished their books, before Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts had published “Harlem Is Nowhere” — a finalist for the 2011 National Book Critics Circle Award — and before Emily Raboteau had published “Searching for Zion,” which was published in January, the two women used to take walks together. They would amble past the George Washington…
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Was Composer Richard Wagner Actually Jewish?
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 illluminating, edifying and sometimes wacky clippings from the Jewish past. 100 Years Ago 1913 While it is well known that the great composer Richard…
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How Did Ed Koch Do It?
Ed Koch thinks Andrew Cuomo is a schmuck. He says so in an aside caught on camera by the makers of “Koch,” an excellent new documentary about the former New York City mayor that opens February 1 in New York. Cuomo’s specific offense is unclear: It’s election night in 2010, and he’s just been declared…
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Books How Some Jews Live
Earlier this week, Ilie Ruby wrote about the idea of bashert. 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 always begin like this, with Irv, my grandfather, and then I describe him,…
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War Is (Beautiful) Hell
‘Through Soviet Jewish Eyes: Photography, War and the Holocaust,” on display at the Museum of Jewish Heritage — A Living Memorial to the Holocaust through the first week of April, is a must-see exhibition of beautiful photographs taken by Soviet Jewish photojournalists during World War II. Organized by historian David Shneer and curator Lisa Tamiris…
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A Klezmerizing Performer
As decades roll, it is becoming increasingly clear that the klezmer revival of the late 1970s was neither a fleeting fad nor a bout of nostalgia; it was a serious identity exploration. The longevity and evolution of certain early groups — The Klezmatics, the Klezmer Conservatory Band — is telling enough. Yet, the most important…
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Books Author Blog: What’s Meant To Be
Ilie Ruby is the author of “The Salt God’s Daughter” and “The Language of Trees.” 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: One of the things that I find most compelling about…
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Finding Tale of Redemption at Auschwitz
● The Thief of Auschwitz By Jon Clinch CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 276 pages, $16 ‘The Thief of Auschwitz” stole my sleep. Jon Clinch’s latest novel, which he has chosen to self-publish, is a page-turner with style. It’s a simpler, quicker read than “Finn,” his impressive first novel, which brilliantly imagined the backstory of Huckleberry…
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Books Debating the Term ‘Concentration Camp’
Earlier this week, Eric L. Muller wrote about the photographer Bill Manbo, mass incarceration and Kodachrome, and asked: What does a concentration camp look like? 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:…
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