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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Books
Mourning the Loss of a Non-Jewish Parent
Gayle Redlingshafer Berman is co-author, with her husband, Harold, of “Doublelife: One Family, Two Faiths and a Journey of Hope,” the first true-life account of “an intermarriage gone Jewish.” She is also an internationally acclaimed singer, and has performed and conducted throughout North America, Europe and the Middle East. Her blog posts are featured on…
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Alicia Keys and a Brief History of the Israel Boycott
The question of whether or not to perform in Israel can be controversial for Jewish and non-Jewish artists alike. Will it be perceived as a political statement? Will it cost them fans? Not to mention the pressure from supporters of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement and, perhaps most influential, fellow artists. The latest artist…
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Honoring Sorrow and Remembering Franz Kafka on Tisha B’Av
The other night, over frozen peanut-butter pie, I spoke to my children about Auschwitz. A Sabbath guest had mentioned his father’s unfortunate childhood and I seized the opportunity to discuss tattoos. My teenage children knew of the terrible numbering technique but my eight-year-old was baffled. Genocide makes for awkward dessert conversation. “On their arms?” wondered…
The Latest
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Books Five Jewish Women People Have Never Heard Of
Melissa R. Klapper is a professor of history at Rowan University in Glassboro, NJ. Her newest book, “Ballots, Babies, and Banners of Peace: American Jewish Women’s Activism, 1890-1940” (NYU Press), is now available. Her blog posts are featured on The Arty Semite courtesy of the Jewish Book Council and My Jewish Learning’s Author Blog Series….
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The Second Coming of Jewish Baseball Star Jason Marquis
In October 2012, Gerald Eskenazi wrote an article in this newspaper on the evolving image of the Jewish athlete. The article quoted the mother of major league pitcher Jason Marquis, who had once called the editor of the Jewish Sports Review to ask: “My son’s Jewish. How come he’s not in your publication?” By last…
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Was Judas Hanged or Was He Hung?
Commenting on my July 5 column about the word “Judas” and the New Testament figure it derives from, Robert Cotton writes: “It appears that you are not a member of the Association of English Grammarians, since if you were, you would have written ‘Judas is said to have hanged himself’ and not, as you did,…
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Shakedown Artist ‘Red Shirt Abie’ Convicted for Poisoning Deliverymen’s Horses
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. 100 years ago Horse Poisoner Busted Dozens of businessmen — some victims, others simply…
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Books Dreaming at the Movies
Earlier this week, Ilan Mochari wrote about The Who and Jewish summer camp and the autobiographical elements in his novel, “Zinsky the Obscure” (Fomite Press). 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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Revolution and Evolution of the American Cantor
It should come as no surprise to anyone who reads the Forward that American Jewish life is awash in change, much of it far-reaching and monumental. Most of us can catalog those changes in a flash: intermarriage, the waning support of traditional Jewish charities, an increasingly contested relationship with Israel. But there are other, equally…
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The Rediscovery of a Yiddish Master Painter From Czernovitz
In 2002, during a visit to his native Israel, Haim Baron’s mother urged him to buy one of his cousin Isiu Schärf’s artworks. Baron had seen some of Schärf’s work before in the apartment of his maternal grandmother, Schärf’s aunt, who had sponsored the artist’s emigration from Romania to Israel in 1974. And Baron and…
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Deconstructing The ‘Most Pro-Israel’ Zombie Movie Ever Made
If you were to judge only by what’s been said in the media firestorm it’s left in its wake, you might assume that the new Brad Pitt zombie extravaganza, “World War Z,” is so pro-Israel that by the time the credits roll, the audience members will be singing “Hatikva” just to inoculate themselves against the…
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