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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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:…
The Latest
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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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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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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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Film & TV Israel’s Home Movies Aren’t That Interesting
Believe it or not, there is something worse than being trapped in a friend’s living room while he unspools a year’s worth of home movies. What is that? Going to a theater and paying to watch home movies. That’s the prospect facing audiences at “Israel: A Home Movie,” an Israeli film by Eliav Lilti that…
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Books Author Blog: A Word on Who I Am
Earlier this week, Ilan Mochari wrote about 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: A few months ago I finished Pete…
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Meet the New Generation of Jewish Magicians
Video footage recorded live at the Players Theatre. While Jews make up less than 3% of the American population, nearly 20% of American magicians are Jews. There’s David Copperfield, Ricky Jay and David Blaine, the endurance artist who sports several controversial tattoos, including the numbers that were branded on Primo Levi’s arm at Auschwitz. “Magic…
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Klezmer Musician’s Death Plunges Author Into Exploration of Madness and Grief
● The Guardians: An Elegy By Sarah Manguso Picador, 104 pages, $20. American Jewish author Sarah Manguso’s “The Guardians: An Elegy” is a strip map of a memoir about Manguso’s grief at the suicide of a close friend, a klezmer musician who suffered from recurring psychosis. Lean, elliptical and beautifully written, her book, recently released…
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Books HarperCollins Nixes ‘Wild Things’ Sequel
Those hoping there would be a sequel to Maurice Sendak’s classic children’s book “Where the Wild Things Are” are in for a disappointment. A Kickstarter campaign to raise money for a poem called “Back to the Wild” has been suspended following a copyright complaint from HarperCollins, which published the original “Wild Things.” The U.K.-based crowdfunding…
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Yiddish פּאָדקאַסט: אַ לעבעדיקער שמועס אויף ייִדיש מיט דער אַקטריסע ליאַ קעניג Podcast: A lively conversation in Yiddish with actress Lea Koenig
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News AIPAC is funneling pro-Israel money to candidates and covering its tracks