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
Eight Magical Realist Novels by Jewish Women
It’s no surprise to voracious readers of female-authored fiction that the magical realism genre has flourished by the pens of the fairer sex. Readers with some enthusiasm for the genre may associate it with women of color in particular. For example, there’s Isabel Allende and Laura Esquivel, following in the Latin American tradition of Jorge…
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Meet David Nunes Carvalho, the Jewish Investigator Who Rivaled Sherlock Holmes
Long before the advent of DNA evidence, it was the trail of ink, not blood, which often provided detectives with a direct, chemical connection between criminals and their crimes. A century ago, David Nunes Carvalho, a renowned expert on ink, handwriting and print, became a central figure in some of the world’s most sensational investigations,…
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Books The Nuts and Bolts of Writing
Earlier this week, Jessica Soffer wrote about learning to breathe and a precious treat from the Passover seder plate. 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: Quite recently, someone asked me about…
The Latest
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Passover’s ‘The Song of Songs’ Is Correct Name, Not ‘Solomon’s Song’
One of the customs of the week of Passover is the reading in the synagogue — done at different times in different traditions — of the biblical poem of “The Song of Songs.” “The Song of Songs,” or “The Song of Solomon,” as it is called by the King James and other English Bibles, is…
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Books Author Blog: Learning to Breathe
Earlier this week, Jessica Soffer wrote about a precious treat from the Passover seder plate. 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 needed something. Everyone was dying. Or at least a…
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Comedian Eddie Cantor Threatened by Nazis
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 and edifying clippings from the Jewish past. 100 Years Ago 1913 As Easter-time pogrom threats hover over the Jews of Greece, immigrants from…
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Books Projected Prayers Grow in Popularity as Part of Jewish ‘Visual Tefillah’ Services
Several years ago, Rabbi Lance Sussman, spiritual leader of the Reform synagogue Keneseth Israel, in Elkins Park, Pa., received the grim news that he was going blind. After surgery, eye patches and other treatments, his sight miraculously improved. The experience left him with a profound appreciation for the visual in life. “We live in an…
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How Don Byron Brought Klezmer Music And Mickey Katz Back To Life
A pre-eminent contemporary multi-instrumentalist and composer rooted in jazz, Don Byron has engaged with a wild variety of musical styles — from rap to neo-classical, funk to heavy metal — and is currently touring with the New Gospel Quintet, exploring the heritage of African-American spirituals It was his encounter with klezmer, however, and his tribute…
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Books Author Blog: Precious Haroset
Jessica Soffer’s debut novel, “Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots,” will be published on April 16. Win a signed copy here. 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 am bored to death,…
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Marionettes and Puppetmasters Tell of Nazi Atrocities in Poland
The 23-year-old, New York-based Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theatre has forged more than a few productions that center on Jewish topics — from “Golem” to “The Very Sad Story of Ethel & Julius” to its newest piece, “King Executioner.” The latter, now playing through April 7 at Theater for the New City, explores how the Nazi-afflicted atrocities…
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Finding Passover Wisdom In The Work of Rainier Maria Rilke
Is a question profound if it has no answer? I reflected on this banality the morning after another draining Passover Seder while shuffling — fashionably late and slightly hung over — to a synagogue I found hopeful in the past. In my usual house of worship I would be recruited to lead the service in…
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