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
The Ghost
Earlier this week, Leigh Stein revealed one of her early aspirations: to “Be Anne Frank.” Her 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: My fascination with New Mexico began in…
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What Is Nathan Englander Saying?
What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank By Nathan Englander Knopf, 224 pages, $24.95 You have to clamber over the bodies of Anne Frank and Raymond Carver to reach Nathan Englander’s new stories. With all the ghosts, comparisons and cultural baggage, it’s a messy business, not least because the drying footprints of…
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Books The Diarist
Leigh Stein’s debut novel, “The Fallback Plan,” is now available. Her 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: Before I’d settled on acting or writing, my greatest aspiration was simply…
The Latest
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‘Hugo’s French Connection
It’s déjà vu all over again at the Academy Awards: The nation that gave us motion pictures stands to sweep the Oscars, which will be broadcast February 26. Leading the new wave of French-made or French-inspired movies this year is, of course, Martin Scorsese’s “Hugo,” with 11 nominations. Through the use of new technologies like…
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Who Put the J (and -Ew) in Jew?
Philip Brogadir writes: “As a Jew (getting my bona fides in early), I’ve often had negative reactions to hearing or reading the word ‘Jew’ of the type you describe in your January 20 column. The reasons you give for this reaction are all well taken. However, you omit one that is, in my opinion, as…
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Jewish Roots of the New Testament
‘It is evil for Christians to try to convert Jews with this dreck. Why don’t you people leave us in peace?” So wrote one Amazon reviewer of the new “Jewish Annotated New Testament” (Oxford University Press, 2011), a magisterial volume of Jewish commentaries, essays and scholarly notes on the second half of the Christian Bible….
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Making a Killing From Communication
The Flame Alphabet By Ben Marcus Knopf, 304 pages, $25.95 In the beginning, there was language and also a tree of knowledge. Then human beings got wind of all that, and things started to come undone. We in the digital age are constantly bemoaning the breakdown of real communication and the impending demise of the…
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Books Keeping Doubt Alive
Earlier this week, Eric Weiner wrote about carrots, fish, and Jewish souls and the pleasures of spiritual travel. His blog posts have been 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: Like most people, I…
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Film Festival Focuses on Disabilities
Evan Sneider, an alumnus of community theater and student films, got his big break in 2009 when a high school classmate, now a filmmaker, cast him as a lead in the feature film “Girlfriend.” The titular girlfriend is a cash-strapped single mother caught between a violent, volatile boyfriend and a newly flush suitor, played by…
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Looking Back: February 17, 2012
100 Years Ago in the Forward When Barnett Nemeth went to open his safe in his jewelry store on Manhattan’s Broome Street, he was surprised when two men rushed him, held a revolver to his head and said: “Hands up! We want a look in that safe.” While one of the bandits rifled through the…
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It’s ‘Kosher’ To Accept Real Jesus?
Kosher Jesus By Rabbi Shmuley Boteach Gefen Publishing House, 263 pages, $26 Despite Rabbi Shmuley Boteach’s best efforts in “Kosher Jesus,” some Jewish teachers and their messages are not worth reclaiming. Whether because of their fanciful interpretations of the Bible or their odd religious agendas, they are best ignored. I have in mind not Jesus…
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In Case You Missed It
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Yiddish פֿאָלקלאָר וואָס האָט אָפּגעשפּיגלט דאָס לעבן און הומאָר פֿון אַמאָליקע ייִדןFolklore that reflected the life and humor of Eastern European Jewry
ס׳איז לעצטנס אַרויס אין דער ענגלישער איבערזעצונג אַ בוך אַנעקדאָטן וועגן אַמאָליקע רבנים, כּלל־טוער און גבֿירים
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Fast Forward Israel launches ground operation in Gaza City, as Marco Rubio casts doubt on diplomatic end to war
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Fast Forward Two synagogues and Chabad building in Halifax, Canada, targeted with antisemitic graffiti
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Fast Forward Ohio auction house halts sale of paintings looted during the Holocaust and billed as ‘unclaimed property’
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