Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of Jewish culture. Here, you’ll learn about the latest (and sometimes earliest) in Jewish art, music, film, theater, books as well as the secret Jewish history of everything and everyone from The Rolling Stones to…
Culture
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That time Yiddishists met extraterrestrials a short while ago in a galaxy not far away
It was a normal summer internship at the Yiddish Book Center ... until the Jedi invaded our turf
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Joseph, First Diaspora Success Story
Miketz — At the End of Two Years Genesis 41:1–44:17 Because We Were Strangers Joseph is the archetype of the Diaspora Jewish success story. He is the first ever to make it big in the royal court. He is the first to understand what it means to live outside Israel, initially under duress but later…
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Books A Cartoon Education
Richard Codor’s most recent book, “Too Many Latkes!” (Behrman House), is now available. His blog posts are being featured this week 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 memory of my cousin handing me my first…
The Latest
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The Part-Jewish Question: Double the Pleasure or Twice the Pain?
This review by Christopher Hitchens, who died Thursday at age 62, was published in the January 26, 2001 edition of the Forward. Read Rabbi Shmuley Boteach’s appreciation of Hitchens here. Suddenly Jewish: Jews Raised as Gentiles Discover Their Jewish Roots By Barbara Kessel Brandeis University, 127 pages, $19.95. According to the laws of Moses, the…
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Books Jews in Narnia
Earlier this week, Lavie Tidhar wrote about his fixation on historical figures and being compared to Philip K. Dick. His blog posts are being featured this week 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: Michael Weingrad made…
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Intrepid Guide Takes You to Territories
Fred Schlomka is quite an extraordinary man, and his travel company, Green Olive Tours, is built to match. Working from his small home in Kfar Saba, a suburb of Tel Aviv, he operates a network of a dozen Israeli and Palestinian guides who take tourists deep into the Occupied Territories, from Nablus and Jenin in…
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Tamar, A Model of Female Leadership
Vayeshev “Vayered Yehuda,” our story begins – literally, Yehuda descended. This is an emotional statement as well as a topographical one. Tamar’s story begins just as we conclude the story of Yehuda proposing that his brothers sell their younger brother Joseph. In both stories, Yehuda acts in an immoral way. The story begins by telling…
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Spinoza of Wall Street
Bento’s Sketchbook By John Berger Pantheon, 176 pages, $28.95 Can a mass of ordinary, well-meaning people, without great wealth or political power, radically change the structure of the society in which they live? It’s a question that has been much on the world’s mind this past year. In Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, autocratic rulers and…
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Books Being Compared to Philip K. Dick
Earlier this week, Lavie Tidhar wrote about his fixation on historical figures. His blog posts are being featured this week 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: Being compared to Philip K. Dick is great, especially when…
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Vayeshev — And Jacob Dwelt
Genesis 37:1–40:23 Jacob and His Two Firstborns, Judah and Joseph There is something reassuringly stable and secure in the notion of “dwelling,” the verb that gives this week’s portion its name. It has an air of permanence, of rootedness, unlike more tentative concepts such as sojourning or abiding. The same is true of the Hebrew…
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Gimme Some Old Time Gossip
Gossip: The Untrivial Pursuit By Joseph Epstein Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 256 pages, $25 The only book I would rather review than a treatise on gossip is a history of pornography: Both promise all the thrill of the source material with only half the need to smuggle the book inside a magazine on the subway. Or…
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Discovering Israel’s Not-So-Old History
When American Jews think of the Israeli landscape, what come to mind are ancient ruins, contemporary settlement blocs and walls of all sorts. But as I recently discovered on a whirlwind trip, the situation on the ground is far more complex than that. Buildings whose history stretches back to pre-state days are being given a…
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