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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Rise of the Machines
Gideon Weisz of Boulder, Colo., calls my attention to a recent BBC translation gaffe that has British Jews chuckling. In their comedy “Episodes,” the British television channel’s producers staged a scene in a Jewish cemetery in which there is a tombstone bearing the English inscription: Beloved Husband and Father Yehudi Penzel Dearly Missed Beloved Head…
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When Part Is Lost, What of the Whole?
The World Without You By Joshua Henkin Pantheon, 336 pages, $25.95 Leo Frankel is dead. He died on July 4, 2004, while on a reporting trip in Iraq. The action of “The World Without You” takes place over the weekend of his unveiling, in 2005, and while Leo is, in some ways, at the center…
The Latest
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Books Author Blog: Truth That’s Stranger Than Fiction
Earlier this week, Lois Leveen wrote about what makes a book Jewish. 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: Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. But it can be hard to tell….
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Looking Back: July 6, 2012
100 Years Ago 1912 Annie Weiss, 16, was dragged before Magistrate Corrigan in Manhattan’s Centre Street Courthouse on the charge that she was the ringleader of a band of young thieves. A few weeks ago, a gang of young boys broke into the Rabinowitz home on 8 Rector Place and stole goods valued at $50….
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Books Author Blog: Pioneering Geneticist Chaim Sheba
IIn “Legacy: A Genetic History of the Jewish People,” Harry Ostrer wrote about a series of scientists who contributed to our contemporary understanding of Jewishness. This week, he provides a series of short vignettes that describe their contributions about what it means to be a Jew. His blog posts are featured on The Arty Semite…
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Books Author Blog: Funny, You Don’t Book Jewish
Lois Leveen?s newest novel, ?The Secrets of Mary Bowser,? 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: [![][4]][4] There?s a novel I first read years ago that rang true in…
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Not Your Grandmother’s Grandmothers
The Story of a Life: Memoirs of a Young Jewish Woman in the Russian Empire By Anna Pavlovna Vygodskaia, translated by Eugene Avrutin and Robert Greene Northern Illinois University Press, 202 pages, $22.95 Journal (1918-1920) By Nelly Ptachkina, translated into French by Luba Jurgenson Les Éditions des Syrtes, 267 pages, $29.39 All too often, accounts…
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Books Author Blog: Fighting Anti-Semitism, Genetically
In “Legacy: A Genetic History of the Jewish People,” Harry Ostrer wrote about a series of scientists who contributed to our contemporary understanding of Jewishness. This week, he provides a series of short vignettes that describe their contributions about what it means to be a Jew. His blog posts are featured on The Arty Semite…
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The God Who ‘Evenings Evenings’
Harvey Klineman has a question about the Hebrew phrase ha-ma’ariv aravim that occurs at the beginning and end of the opening prayer of the evening service — a phrase that means (referring to God) “who brings on evenings,” although a more literal translation of it would be “who evenings evenings.” Mr. Klineman writes: “Since this…
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Books Author Blog: Sleeping on Felix Frankfurter’s Couch
Earlier this week, Joshua Henkin talked about how he came to write his latest novel, his father and grandfather, and explored the question: “Are you a Jewish writer?” 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…
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Woody Lays an Egg
Woody Allen has made a lot of movies. I know this because I recently tried to watch them all in three days, over the Memorial Day weekend. It was impossible. To watch all 44 of Allen’s feature films back to back (and these are only the ones he wrote, directed or both), would take more…
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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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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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