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
Women’s Songs in Torah and ‘The Big Sleep’
Yesterday, Janice Steinberg wrote about Yiddish inflected English and the audiobook version of her novel, “The Tin Horse.” 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: Although I live in California, I don’t…
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These Objects Are Closer Than They Appear
One of the seminal stories in the history of art is that of Marcel Duchamp, a French artist who, in 1913, took a bicycle wheel, mounted it on a stool, and called it art. “Readymades” was the term Duchamp later coined for the everyday objects — bottle racks, shovels, even urinals — that he would…
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Books J.D. Salinger Biopic in the Works
J.D. Salinger, the reclusive author of “The Catcher in the Rye” and “Franny and Zooey,” among other books, will be the subject of a new biography and film, according to the Associated Press. Publisher Simon & Schuster announced today that they had bought the rights to “The Private War of J.D. Salinger” by author David…
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Books Author Blog: The Beauty of Broken English
Janice Steinberg’s most recent book, “The Tin Horse,” 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. For more information on the series, please visit: I thought I had entered completely into the world of my novel: Boyle Heights…
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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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Jewish Sideman Saul Rubin Takes Turn in Spotlight
Despite his easygoing presence, guitarist Saul Rubin reveals a contrarian side when contemplating the commercial zeitgeist. Having gone largely unrecognized for much of his performing life, this master of the musical conversation has, at 54, little time for interplay, musical or otherwise, with the single-minded strivers who populate today’s fragmenting marketplace. It’s no small quirk…
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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…
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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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Film & TV The new ‘Superman’ is being called anti-Israel, but does that make it pro-Palestine?
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Music ‘No matter what, I will always be a Jew.’ Billy Joel opens up about his family’s Holocaust history
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Culture She was my Hebrew school bully — and I finally learned what happened to her
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Opinion American Jews were played — now what?
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