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: The Art of Silence
Jay Neugeboren is the author of 20 books, including two prize winning novels, two prize-winning non-fiction books, and four collections of award-winning stories. His most recent books are “The American Sun & Wind Moving Picture Company” (March 2013) and “The Other Side of the World” (December 2012). His blog posts are featured on The Arty…
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Books A Family Like No Other
The Zelmenyaners: A Family Saga By Moyshe Kulbak, translated by Hillel Halkin, introduction and notes by Sasha Senderovich Yale University Press, 304 pages, $25 Near the end of “The Zelmenyaners,” a novel by Soviet Yiddish writer Moyshe Kulbak, one of the younger characters takes the stand to denounce her family. The proceedings are officially about…
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Rebooting The Führer
Although he has been dead for nearly 70 years, Adolf Hitler continues to make headlines. In recent years, the Nazi dictator has become an inescapable presence in Western political and cultural life, serving as a polemical trump card in political debates, a demonic star in feature films, a marketable symbol in advertising campaigns and an…
The Latest
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Books New Yiddish Dictionary Explores Intracacies of Language
Comprehensive Yiddish-English Dictionary Edited by Solon Beinfeld and Harry Bochner Indiana University Press, 744 pages, $45 The binding of my copy of Uriel Weinreich’s “Modern English-Yiddish Yiddish-English Dictionary” broke sometime between my third and fourth semesters studying the language. The beginning Yiddish student can get by with only the glossary in the back of Weinreich’s…
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Dry Jewish Humor Informs Irving Penn’s Photographs
One can often differentiate between New Yorkers and tourists — or “out-of-towners” — based on the trajectory of their gazes; visitors, no doubt dazzled by the soaring skyline, walk around with their eyes fixed on the tops of the skyscrapers. Natives, meanwhile, navigate their way through the obstacle course of slow foot-traffic with their eyes…
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Just How Orthodox Are They?
For old-time readers of this newspaper, Seth Lipsky needs no introduction: Lipsky was the English Forward’s founder and first publisher back in 1990, and continued to direct it for most of the decade. His voice continues to be heard on the politically conservative side of the ledger, and in a January 20 column in the…
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Books A Jewish Fiction Reading List
Earlier this week, Michael Lavigne wrote about writing the “Radical Other” and wondered if a writer can take the ego out of writing. His 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: A couple…
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Retired Senator Now Just Going Around Annoying People
The Backward is the Forward’s annual satirical Purim edition. Enjoy! More stories here… Former Senator Joe Lieberman has spent the weeks since his retirement driving around the state of Connecticut getting on people’s nerves, according to reports from residents. Lieberman, once a controversial political figure on the national scene, has been spotted enraging local citizens…
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‘Only Decent People,’ Dutch Jewish Film About Interracial Lust, Sparks Debate
A dreamy expression slowly spreads across Geza Weisz’s handsome face as he watches scantily clad young black women dancing around him at an Amsterdam nightclub. The scene appears in “Only Decent People,” a dark and provocative Dutch-language film that examines the fraught relations between the country’s Jews and other minorities and stars Weisz, a Jewish…
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Cantor’s Apps Bring Jewish Prayers To the iPhone Crowd
Despite the fact that he stars in and co-produces iPhone and iPad apps featuring “A Cantor’s Seder,” “High Holiday Highlights,” and blessings for the deceased, all of which are available on pocketshul.com, Cantor Emanuel Perlman remains a traditionalist. The earnest 60-year-old Perlman, hazan at Baltimore’s conservative Chizuk Amuno Congregation, says he has little patience for…
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Books I Am Writer. Are You Chopped Liver?
Earlier this week, Michael Lavigne wrote about writing the “Radical Other.” His 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: Is it possible to take the ego out of writing? I ask this question…
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