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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Barbra Streisand’s brand-new duet with Bob Dylan is a whole lot different than you might think
Though Dylan and Streisand's voices may seem ill-suited to each other, the two complement each other gorgeously on 'The Very Thought of You'
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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….
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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…
The Latest
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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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For The Love of Pure Khazones
Few outside the world of cantorial music know the name Yitzchak Meir Helfgot, but when Itzhak Perlman listens to the Brooklyn-based cantor’s tenor, he gets goose bumps. Perlman, who has had a love of khazones, synagogue chants, since his boyhood in Tel Aviv, compares Helfgot to Plácido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti, two opera giants with…
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Books Randy Cohen on Being Secular and Getting Fired
For 614 weeks over a 12-year period, Randy Cohen was a latter-day Dear Abby. As author of The Ethicist column in The New York Times Magazine, he provided a moral compass for readers facing quandaries large and small. He collected many of those efforts in a just-published book, “Be Good: How to Navigate the Ethics…
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News No Jews allowed: White supremacists are building a segregated community in Arkansas, but is it legal?
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News Zohran Mamdani has represented Astoria’s Jews for 4 years. What do they think of him?
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News Curtis Sliwa has a plan to beat Zohran Mamdani in NYC mayor’s race — and it starts with apologizing to Jews
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Culture Barbra Streisand’s brand-new duet with Bob Dylan is a whole lot different than you might think
In Case You Missed It
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Fast Forward Josh Shapiro’s Judaism was not why Kamala Harris snubbed him, new book claims
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Yiddish דאָקטוירים פֿון אַן אַנדער שניטDoctors of a different sort
די ווילנער דאָקטוירים יעקבֿ וויגאָדסקי און צמח שאַבאַד זענען אויך געווען געזעלשאַפֿטלעכע טוער.
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Yiddish ווידעאָ: ווען ייִדיש האָט געקלונגען אין די גאַסן פֿון מעקסיקע VIDEO: When Yiddish rang throughout the streets of Mexico
יעקבֿ פֿינקלמאַן באַשרײַבט אויך זײַן לאַנגיאָריקן פֿאַך — ווי ער האָט צוגעשטעלט וויסן אין טעלעקאָמוניקאַציע איבער דער וועלט
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Opinion Want to understand what’s wrong with the ‘pro-Palestine’ movement? This Palestinian can help
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