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
-
Books
Rutu Modan’s Secrets and Revelations
The Property By Rutu Modan, translated by Jessica Cohen Drawn & Quarterly, 232 pages, $24.95 The past takes many forms in Rutu Modan’s graphic novel “The Property.” There is Regina, an elderly woman returning to Poland from Israel for the first time in over 60 years; overzealous re-enactors encountered by her granddaughter Mica on the…
-
All Jewish on the Western Front
The Autry National Center is a gem. Tucked away in Los Angeles’s sprawling Griffith Park, the museum is packed with exhibits about the American West. There’s a stagecoach and a 19th-century fire engine, along with vintage guns and guitars. My favorite installation is the ornate saloon, all mahogany and brass, which provides a taste of…
-
Hannah Arendt Biopic Offers Rare Onscreen View of Political Philosophy
Biopics about philosophers are rare, and they favor activists over ivory-tower thinkers. The life of the mind, unless it directly shapes social action, is not easily captured in film. Hence, Richard Attenborough’s film “Gandhi” exposed the Indian independence leader’s ideas on nonviolent struggle through his political activism, not through his writings. Likewise, Margarethe von Trotta’s…
The Latest
-
A Very Yiddish Take on the Star Spangled Banner
Frieda Danziger of Manhattan writes to ask whether I have ever encountered the Yiddish term farfl un lokshn as a comical or disparaging way of referring to the Stars and Stripes. I have, once, in a poem by Abraham Liessin, a well-known Yiddish poet. Liessin, who was born in Russia in 1872 and came to…
-
Third Century Synagogue Unearthed in Turkey
1913 •100 years ago Nursery’s heartbreaking scenes A black sign hanging on an old three-story house on the Lower East Side’s Madison Street has written on it, in golden letters: “Hebrew Day Nursery.” This means that inside is a place where they keep babies for the day while their mothers are at work. What sad…
-
Tel Aviv Exhibit About Hospitality Arrives With Some Political Baggage
The Tel Aviv Museum of Art is an institution in transition. The addition of the Herta and Paul Amir Building, opened to the public in 2011, effectively doubled the museum’s exhibition space. The sharply angled facade cuts across the rigid lines of the city’s Bauhaus-inspired architecture. Internally, the museum has gone through a crisis of…
-
Books Assimilation and Romanticizing the Past
Earlier this week, Joanna Hershon wrote about an insult and a memorial service she attended for a friend’s father. Her new novel, A Dual Inheritance, was published earlier this month by Ballantine Books. Her blog posts are featured on The Arty Semite courtesy of the Jewish Book Council and My Jewish Learning’s Author Blog Series….
-
Coney Island Impresario Richard Zigun Plans Comeback After Hurricane Sandy
The Wonder Wheel is revolving, the air is awash in overly sweet smells and tinny music is everywhere. Soon the curtain will once again rise on the iconic Sideshows by the Seashore. The last time I visited, it was a windless, midwinter day. Brooklyn’s Coney Island was eerily desolate, and the only sound was that…
-
Books Edouard de Pomiane’s ‘Recollections and Recipes’
Last week, Rebecca Miller wrote about Gluckel of Hameln. She has been sharing texts that shed light on the history of Jewish life in France, the setting of her new novel, Jacob’s Folly. Her blog posts are featured on The Arty Semite courtesy of the Jewish Book Council and My Jewish Learning’s Author Blog Series….
-
Books An Insult and a Very Jewish Conversation
Earlier this week, Joanna Hershon wrote about a memorial service she attended for a friend’s father. Her new novel, “A Dual Inheritance,” was published earlier this month by Ballantine Books. 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…
-
Crusading Photographer Seeks To Save Israeli Mom-and-Pop Shops for Posterity
One morning a week, Assi Haim roams the streets of the old neighborhoods of Tel Aviv with his camera and tripod. He’s racing against time, trying to document a piece of history before it disappears. Haim is searching for “The Rebels,” the elderly owners of small shops who refuse to bow to the crushing winds…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
Opinion Mamdani has made ample efforts for Jews. How come no one is telling that story?
- 2
News Nearly half of young U.S. Jews want to replace Israel with binational state, poll finds
- 3
Music For Bob Dylan’s 85th birthday, an 85-minute playlist
- 4
Film & TV Woody Allen’s biggest fans were easy marks for a fake monologue about antisemitism
In Case You Missed It
-
Looking Forward Why I’m vibing with the pope’s first big statement
-
Opinion How can I live freely as a Jew in a world where strangers rip my mezuzah off my doorframe?
-
Yiddish פּאָדקאַסט: אַ לעבעדיקער שמועס אויף ייִדיש מיט דער אַקטריסע ליאַ קעניג Podcast: A lively conversation in Yiddish with actress Lea Koenig
אינעם שמועס באַטייליקן זיך יניבֿ גאָלדבערג, מיכל יאַשינסקי און חיים וואָלף.
-
News AIPAC is funneling pro-Israel money to candidates and covering its tracks