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
Author Blog: What Is the Story?
Earlier this week, Jennifer Gilmore wrote about the overlap between her personal concerns and writerly concerns. 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: “The Mothers” is the first book I’ve written that…
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Harvey Fierstein Gets ‘Kinky’ and Discusses His Jewish Roots
Harvey Fierstein says he had some reservations about adapting the film “Kinky Boots” into a musical. “To do a drag show doesn’t interest me,” he said. “Been there, done that. A show about shoes doesn’t cry out to me. Also, if something [like the original film] is good, why f–k with it? And a musical…
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Books Rothschild Heiress and ‘Miss Havisham of Bebop’
The name “Rothschild” means different things to different people. In 1902, Sholem Aleichem wrote the monologue “Ven ikh bin Rothschild” (“If I Were a Rothschild”), which would be famously turned into the song “If I Were a Rich Man” by Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock for “Fiddler on the Roof.” To Sholem Aleichem and generations…
The Latest
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Playing Jewish Geography From California to the New York Islands
At one point or another, most of us have undoubtedly played “Jewish Geography.” The Jewish equivalent of “six degrees of separation,” the term refers to the kinship ties and social structures that bind one Jew to another. “Jewish Geography” is how we locate ourselves. It’s our very own GPS. But “Jewish Geography” isn’t just a…
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Books Francesca Segal Wins $100K Rohr Prize
Francesca Segal has won the 2013 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature for her novel “The Innocents,” the Jewish Book Council announced today. The award, worth $100,000, is one of the largest literary prizes in the world and is given for fiction and non-fiction in alternating years. This year’s runner-up, who receives $25,000, is Ben…
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Books Author Blog: Lost Stories
Jennifer Gilmore’s newest novel, “The Mothers,” is now available. 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: “The Mothers” is my third novel but it’s the first novel I’ve written that tracks so…
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How Israel’s Fledgling Air Force Took Flight in Independence Fight
Some 65 years after a band of foreign volunteers took to the skies to ensure Israel’s birth and survival, filmmakers are racing to bring their exploits to the screen before the last of the breed passes away. Among the competing producers and their financial backers are such famous names as Spielberg and Lansky. And though…
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Documentary Sheds Light on Andre Gregory, Star of ‘My Dinner With Andre’
“My Dinner With Andre” is a movie I like to re-watch every so often just for the pleasure of rethinking certain thoughts: Can theater create life-changing experiences, or does it confirm our ideas about the world? Are we ever able to be ourselves, or do we merely act out social roles? Does comfort lull us…
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A.B. Yehoshua Looks Back at His Country and Art
● The Retrospective By A.B. Yehoshua Translated from the Hebrew by Stuart Schoffman Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 336 pages, $26 In A.B. Yehoshua’s latest novel, an aging Israeli film director is invited to Spain for a retrospective of his life’s work. The trip engenders a kind of journey backward in time for the director, Mr. Moses,…
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Understanding Pope Francis’s Surprising Affinity For Jewish Art
Gallery 395A is tucked away in a corner on the third floor of the Art Institute of Chicago’s modern wing. After passing works by Joan Miró, Alberto Giacometti and Salvador Dalí, viewers enter Gallery 395, which features a glass wall overlooking Lake Michigan and is packed with Constantin Brâncusi, Alberto Giacometti and Henry Moore sculptures….
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For D.A. Mishani’s Hero, Police Work Is a Dull Gig
● The Missing File By D.A. Mishani Translated from the Hebrew by Steven Cohen Harper, 304 pages, $25.99 According to his author bio, D.A. Mishani (those are his initials, not his job title) is an editor of Israeli fiction and crime literature at an Israeli publishing company. He is also “a literary scholar specializing in…
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Film & TV Woody Allen’s biggest fans were easy marks for a fake monologue about antisemitism
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Music For Bob Dylan’s 85th birthday, an 85-minute playlist
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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.
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News AIPAC is funneling pro-Israel money to candidates and covering its tracks