Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of Jewish culture. Here, you’ll learn about the latest (and sometimes earliest) in Jewish art, music, film, theater, books as well as the secret Jewish history of everything and everyone from The Rolling Stones to…
Culture
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I have seen the future of America — in a pastrami sandwich in Queens
San Wei, which serves pastrami sandwiches along with churros and biang biang noodles, represents an immigrant's fulfillment of the American dream
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Zionism and Its Discontents
Parting Ways: Jewishness and the Critique of Zionism By Judith Butler Columbia University Press, 256 pages, $27 Judith Butler is not anti-Semitic. I agree with her on that point, which she makes on her publisher’s website. Her new book, “Parting Ways,” represents her attempt to set the record straight regarding her controversial views on Zionism….
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Rebels With a Cause
Though he had no way of knowing it at the time, Seth Rosenfeld was already working on his explosive new book “Subversives: The FBI’s War on Student Radicals, and Reagan’s Rise to Power” over three decades ago, before he’d even graduated from college, because of a phone call from his editor at his student newspaper….
The Latest
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A Very Merry 5773 to All
Everyone knows when it’s New Year’s Day — and everyone knows what new year it’s the first day of. After 2012 comes 2013. But although nearly all American Jews know it’s Rosh Hashanah this week, not all of them could tell you that the new Jewish year is 5773. After all, once the holiday is…
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London’s Soccer ‘Yid Army’ Crosses Pond
A pattern of rhythmic claps emanated from the upper deck of the Red Bull Arena in Harrison, N.J., as North London’s Tottenham Hotspur attempted to best the New York Red Bulls in a preseason exhibition soccer game this summer. But this was no average expression of fandom: Each round of claps was punctuated by a…
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Books Author Blog: The War of Narratives
Earlier this week, Shani Boianjiu explored the book of Jonah and writing her debut novel in a foreign language. 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: When I first started writing, I…
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Remembrance of Jews’ Past
It was 30 years ago that Yosef Yerushalmi’s” Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory” was first published. The shortest book by Yerushalmi, a prolific professor of Jewish history at Columbia University until his death in 2009, it has had the longest reach. The issues raised in the book, Yerushalmi suggested, are not “necessarily confined to…
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An Agnostic Equation
When it was revealed in 2007 that Mother Teresa — widely regarded as a bastion of faith — doubted her religious beliefs, the public got a rare glimpse of a tormented, and distinctly human, life of paradox. The publication of Mother Teresa’s written communications exposed “a startling portrait in self-contradiction,” in which her private spiritual…
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Books Life During Wartime
The People of Forever are Not Afraid Shani Boianjiu Hogarth, 352 pages, $24 One interesting thing about a 70-year war is that, for those fighting it, it’s no longer interesting at all. Violence is just another form of monotony. Exhausted and dull of spirit, the soldier tries to keep herself awake “with sex, with hurt,…
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Books Author Blog: Writing in a Foreign Language
Earlier this week, Shani Boianjiu explored the book of Jonah. 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 was born and raised in Israel, and my novel, “The People of Forever Are…
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Looking Back: August 17, 2012
100 Years Ago 1912 Police in Newark, N.J., have arrested a number of figures in a major check-kiting scheme. Morris Lubin, Jacob Lubin and Samuel Freedman, all Newark residents, were arrested after being followed by detectives. One of their gang, who apparently noticed the detectives who were tracking them, managed to slip away; the person…
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Looking Back: August 10, 2012
100 Years Ago 1912 Mrs. Sadie Teitelbaum and her brother, Benjamin Silver, have been indicted for the murder of one Leo Scamen in Brooklyn. Teitelbaum and Scamen ran a restaurant on Surf Avenue in Coney Island. Scamen was found just outside the restaurant, dying of a gunshot wound. As Scamen was rushed to the hospital,…
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