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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Genetic Diseases That Affect Sephardic Jews
Sephardic and Mizrahi Disorders Routine screening for Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews includes carrier screening for cystic fibrosis and spinal muscular atrophy as well as for hemoglobinopathies (such as beta thalassemia — see below). The following list includes a selection of some conditions that are more common in different Sephardic and Mizrahi populations. More specialized screening…
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Gut Wrenching Story: One Woman’s Struggle With Ulcerative Colitis
How shall I put this delicately? When we speak about the work of our gastrointestinal tract, which we rarely do, we use euphemisms. Nevertheless, I will plunge into precarious territory by being frank: I never had a friendly relationship with the toilet. From early childhood, my stool looked like hard pebbles. I was chronically constipated…
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Treating Sacred Texts as Art Objects at Museum of Biblical Art
Sometimes stories are so ingrained in us, so much a part of our culture, that we take them for granted. In these instances, artists become particularly valuable, revisiting and reinterpreting stories for us, giving them new life. In “As Subject and Object: Contemporary Book Artists Explore Sacred Hebrew Texts,” which runs through September 29 at…
The Latest
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Decoding the Ashkenazi Genome May Offer Clues to Cancer, Diabetes
Scientists have long been acutely interested in the genetic idiosyncrasies of Ashkenazi Jews. Like other groups with a long history of marrying from within, Ashkenazim constitute a relatively homogenous population. This has led to the discovery of a number of genetic alterations, or mutations, that are responsible for diseases found more often in Ashkenazi Jews….
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How Phyllis Lambert Changed the Architecture of New York
BUILDING SEAGRAM By Phyllis Lambert Yale University Press, 320 pages, $65 Until the 1950s, architecture in New York was not much to look at. Highlights from the early 20th-century included the Gothic revival of the Woolworth Building (1913), as well as the Art Deco of the Chrysler Building (1930) and the Empire State Building (1931)….
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Frum Guide To Talking Like an FFB, BT or an FFT
‘As the discussion above has shown,” writes the author of a recent book about linguistic issues, “BTs address this liminality in various ways. Some become FFT — at times even passing as FFB — and others highlight their BT identity.” Some of you may immediately know who is being talked about. For those who don’t…
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Yale Researchers Sally and Bennett Shaywitz Bust Dyslexia Myths
Sally Shaywitz was home with three children under the age of five when she was asked to take a position at Yale School of Medicine that would focus on learning difficulties. The question of why some kids struggle in school was not exactly a hotbed of medical research in the 1970s, but Shaywitz, a developmental…
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Jewish Gangster Lured to Revenge Shooting at Restaurant on E. 14th Street
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, edifying and sometimes wacky clippings from the Jewish past. 1913 •100 years ago Gangster Billy Lustig Shot New York City Police suspect that…
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Books Writing the Tradition
Earlier this week, Daniel Torday wrote about Jewish novella-writers and discussed the complicated “Jewish Writer Question.” Daniel’s novella “The Sensualist” won the 2012 National Jewish Book Award in Outstanding Debut Fiction. 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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Inflammatory Bowel Disease Information
The Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America : Offers IBD patients and their families support groups and online communities. MDJunction.com Online site, www.ccfa.org, where thousands meet to discuss their feelings, questions and hopes with like-minded friends. On Facebook: Life After Crohn’s On Twitter: twitter.com/IBD support On LinkedIn: Crohn’s, Colitis & Digestive Disease Support Network For…
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At 91, Mildred Kayden Is More Successful Than Ever
Composer and lyricist Mildred Kayden thought jazz was great music way back, when it was viewed as somehow lesser in many circles. When she was teaching at Vassar College in the 1940s and ‘50s, jazz was not included in the musical curriculum, and even a production like “Porgy and Bess” was written as an operetta,…
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