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
Hans Keilson’s First Novel Depicts Life Before Nazis
Life Goes On By Hans Keilson Translated by Damion Searls Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 272 pages, $15 Two years ago, when Farrar, Straus and Giroux released translations of his novels “The Death of the Adversary” and “Comedy in a Minor Key,” centenarian Hans Keilson told Steven Erlanger of The New York Times that he would…
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Books Author Blog: Different, but Special
Jami Attenberg’s most recent novel, “The Middlesteins,” is now available. Her other books include: “Instant Love,” “The Kept Man” and “The Melting Season.” 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 have…
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Debunking Myth of the Unathletic Jew
I would not say I’ve become jaded, but I thought I had heard enough (and written enough) about Sandy Koufax not pitching on Yom Kippur. I knew the stories about Hank Greenberg and Al Rosen and those other outstanding Jewish ballplayers. And then one day, in the mail recently, I got a 24-page publication called…
The Latest
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Books Don’t Know Much About Semitism
I came from such an assimilated family that our clam chowder was Campbell’s. Nevertheless, I was raised with certain traditions. There was the “No Slacks on Yom Kippur” rule and the “Seder at Aunt Sara and Uncle George’s.” If my family had settled in Dallas or Indianapolis, we might have easily melded into America, but…
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Books Teenage Hero Is a Distinctly West Coast Jew
Since you Left Me By Allen Zadoff Egmont USA, 320 pages, $16 Has any Jewish teenager in recent American literature felt as much antipathy toward attending Hebrew school as Sanskrit Aaron Zuckerman? The 17-year-old narrator of Allen Zadoff’s new bildungsroman, “Since You Left Me,” has just cause, though. First, he’s only attending “B-Jew” (the nickname…
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To Err is Human, To Forgive Bovine
Writing about the Spanish economic situation in the New York Times on October 4, columnist Roger Cohen, in an op-ed entitled “In the Time of the Skinny Cows,” remarked: “In Spain, the euro zone’s fourth-largest economy, the good times are those of ‘vacas gordas,’ or fat cows, and the lean years those of ‘vacas flacas,’…
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When Tehran Comes to Los Angeles
Museum negotiations to bring artifacts from abroad for exhibits are typically complex. And the detailed discussions that brought a stunning collection opening on Iranian Jewry here in October were no exception. But the institutional arrangements between the Fowler Museum at the University of California, Los Angeles and Beit Hatfutsot: The Museum of the Jewish People,…
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Books Author Blog: Leading by Example
Earlier this week, Stefanie Pervos Bregman, the editor of “Living Jewishly,” wrote about engaging 20- and 30-somethings in the Jewish world, Rabbi Jason Miller wrote about exploring commonalities between religions and Rivka Nehorai shared the truth about motherhood. Today we hear from “Living Jewishly” contributor Rachel Wright. Their blog posts are featured on The Arty…
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Murderers Row Pays Tribute to Jewish Athletes
Jewish Jocks: An Unorthodox Hall of Fame Edited by Franklin Foer and Marc Tracy Twelve, 304 pages, $26.99 As long as people are reading the Bible, Jews will always be thought of as a stubborn people. You can thank God for that: In Deuteronomy 9:6, God tells Moses that the Israelites are “stiff-necked.” As long…
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Dutch Soccer Remained Silent During Holocaust
Ajax, the Dutch, the War: The Strange Tale of Soccer During Europe’s Darkest Hour By Simon Kuper Nation Books, 257 pages, $15.99 Bill Shankly, the legendary soccer coach of the British club Liverpool FC, is often quoted as saying, “Football is not a matter of life and death, it’s more important than that.” The attribution…
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‘Driving Miss Daisy’ Writer Returns Home
Alfred Uhry is taking a break from a rehearsal of his new play, “Apples and Oranges,” and he is telling a story about his mother. His avuncular voice shifts to hers: “Just think, Alfred,” he drawls sweetly, evoking a moment in 1989 when he’d taken her to the movie set of “Driving Miss Daisy,” “you’re…
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