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
Writing the Radical Other
Michael Lavigne’s first novel, “Not Me,” was the recipient of the Sami Rohr Prize Choice Award. His newest novel, “The Wanting,” will be published by Schocken Books on February 26. Win a free copy of “The Wanting” here, visit Michael on Facebook, and visit his official website here. His blog posts are featured on The…
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Books Author Blog: Dreaming in Mother Tongues
Earlier, Hannah S. Pressman wrote about the idea behind “Choosing Yiddish: New Frontiers of Language and Culture” and when she first began to study Yiddish. 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:…
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Boomer Unemployment Is a Growing Crisis
Seasoned Jewish educational leaders make up a small slice of the older Americans struggling with unemployment. Health and social services agencies have been scrambling to support the demographic group having the hardest time finding new work — the millions of out-of-work baby boomers too young to retire and too old to start over. Profoundly concerned…
The Latest
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Recession Bites as Jewish Educators Downsized
It is no secret that Jewish communal organizations have taken a beating in the ongoing economic recession. Educational institutions, including schools and synagogue programs, have had to slash budgets, and bureaus of Jewish education have either scaled back or closed their doors altogether. Less apparent is the impact on individual lives. In the wake of…
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Jewish Leaders of the Education Debate
Jews dominate the debate over how to fix America’s schools. They run the teachers unions, fund the activist groups and hold some of the key political positions. They all want to change public education. They disagree bitterly, however, on how to do so. On one side, a coalition of wealthy donors and politicians has sought…
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A Farewell to Maurice Sendak
My Brother’s Book By Maurice Sendak HarperCollins Publishers, 31 pages, $18.95 Probably the best stage direction in the history of theater occurs in Act III of William Shakespeare’s “A Winter’s Tale.” A storm brews on the coast of Bohemia, where Antigonus, on orders of the king, is abandoning his child, Perdita. “I am gone forever,”…
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Trauma-rama, Hebrew School Style
If you went to Hebrew school, you probably have one of these. No, not a prayer book given to you by the sisterhood — though of course you have one of those, too (with the program from your bat mitzvah still stuck inside). I’m talking about something else: a story about a Hebrew school moment…
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The Jewish Guy Who Killed Spiderman
Spiderman heroically dispatched countless foes since he arrived on the scene in 1962. Nearly a half-century later, Brian Michael Bendis managed to kill him. In 2000, Bendis was hired to write Ultimate Spiderman, a modern-day retelling of the classic Spiderman story. More than 10 years, 160 issues and several blockbuster Hollywood adaptations later, Bendis did…
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The History of Yenta’s and its Dirty Roots
Read a follow-up post by Ezra Glinter on the true Yiddish history of the word “Yenta.” Pssst! Wanna know a juicy secret? Get this: The most well-known Yiddish word describing women doesn’t mean what we think it does. I’m no linguist, but after spending a little time on several authoritative Yiddish dictionaries, I’m convinced that…
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Israel Museum Exhibit Focuses on the Act of Creation
At first glance, the work of contemporary Israeli painters Israel Hershberg and Joshua Borkovsky may seem quite different. But actually, the two artists — both of whom are the subjects of exhibitions at Jerusalem’s Israel Museum — complement each other remarkably well, for both exhibits concern the act of painting itself. “Fields of Vision: Landscapes…
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Grassroots Student Groups Calmly Tackle Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has long been a fiery subject on college campuses, with national pro-Israel groups and, to a lesser extent, their pro-Palestinian counterparts vying to influence the debate. Alongside such heavy hitters as Hillel or the Muslim Students Association, smaller, student-created groups have cropped up. These grassroots groups often focus on dialogue rather than…
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