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
8 Best Jewish YA Novels for Girls
I’m often that person who gives books to children as gifts. They probably groan when they open them, but I’m usually out of earshot by then. As a kid, I was thrilled when a relative made a tasteful selection for me. There are a few more nights left of Hanukkah, so if you’re in need…
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Books Author Blog: What Is Fair Taxation?
Yesterday Shmuly Yanklowitz wrote about Hurricane Sandy, FEMA, and the Need for Big Government. 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: If one listened only to the avalanche of political ads during…
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Books Women Helped Jewish Lit Evolve in 2012
On December 6, the Center for the Humanities at The Graduate Center of The City University of New York hosted a panel with an intriguing title: “Contemporary Jewish-American Writing: What Has Changed?” Equally interesting, especially when attention is being paid to gender (in)equities in publishing, the panel proposed to discuss how women writers, in particular,…
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Books It’s Hanukkah Time! Where’s the Party?
Last week, Joshua Eli Plaut wrote about Festivus and Jewish Santas. 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: Every December, I am overwhelmed by the magnitude of Jewish celebrations taking place across…
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Books Author Blog: Hurricane Sandy and Big Government
Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz is the Founder and President of Uri L’Tzedek, the Senior Rabbi at Kehilath Israel, and is the author of “Jewish Ethics & Social Justice: A Guide for the 21st Century.” Newsweek named Rav Shmuly one of the top 50 rabbis in America. His blog posts are featured on The Arty Semite courtesy…
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Eve Ensler’s Jewish Dialogue
Describing Eve Ensler as a relentless enthusiast and dedicated feminist is accurate, yet doesn’t do her justice. Consider this: She is a Tony-winning playwright, performer, author, filmmaker and activist whose leadership on behalf of women has had a worldwide impact — from the Congo to Bosnia to American prisons. Her best-known piece, “The Vagina Monologues,”…
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Books Author Blog: The Values We Live By
Earlier, Debra Band discussed how she visually expresses biblical stories and shared the back story behind “Arise! Arise!” 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: One of the remarkable things that I…
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Silversmithing in the Yemen
In a November 9 op-ed in The Daily Beast, Bruce Riedel, a senior Brookings Institution fellow, referred to Yemen and its Al Qaeda problem as “the scariest challenge facing Obama abroad.” Reporting two days earlier on a Yemeni security official killed in a drive-by shooting, the Associated Press cited officials, who said that at least…
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A Good Year For the Moses
By now, I suspect that most Forward readers are aware that Herman Wouk, at the ripe old age of 97, has just published a novel called “The Lawgiver,” whose plot hinges on the efforts of an assorted band of characters to produce a movie based on the life of Moses. Determined to outdo Cecil B….
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How To Confuse a Gentile
Carol Russak writes from San Francisco: “My mother, who was from a small town near Chernovitz, used to use the expression daber nisht when she didn’t want to talk about a subject. I know that this means ‘Don’t talk,’ a combination of Hebrew daber and Yiddish nisht. Have you ever come across this expression?” I…
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Everything Isn’t Illuminated
EL ILUMINADO: A GRAPHIC NOVEL by Ilan Stavans and Steve Sheinkin Basic Books, 208 pages, $24.99 ‘I suppose you’ll turn the whole murky mystery into some preposterous page-turner,” one of Ilan Stavans’s academic colleagues tells him as “El Iluminado” gets moving. “‘The Da Vinci Code,’ with matzo and salsa picante.” That would be the best-case…
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