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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Do Jews Curse the Christians?
Cursing The Christians? A History of the Birkat Haminim By Ruth Langer Oxford University Press, 388 pages, $74 During a year studying medieval liturgical manuscripts, Ruth Langer found herself drawn to places where words, phrases and even a whole paragraph had been erased or, as she explained in an email to the Forward, “literally blacked…
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Books Yiddish Stories Not Lost in Translation
The Association of Jewish Libraries Guide to Yiddish Short Stories By Bennett Muraskin Ben Yehuda Press, 79 pages, $14.50 The title of this small but useful book might have been lengthened to include “in the English language,” but the point is taken. We are now in a veritable golden age of translation, though the “golden”…
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Books The Perils and Pleasures of Spiritual Travel
Earlier this week, Eric Weiner wrote about carrots, fish and Jewish souls. 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: I’ve written a book about my “spiritual journey,” fully aware…
The Latest
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Tu B’Shvat a Holiday in Transition
Last Tu B’Shvat, the Museum of Jewish Heritage, located on Manhattan’s Battery Place, hosted a musical — “The Hatseller and the Monkeys” — and an arts and crafts event for children. This year, the museum has no nature-themed events on the docket to mark the Jewish new year’s celebration for trees, which begins on the…
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Books On Carrots and Fishes and Jewish Souls
Eric Weiner’s new book, “Man Seeks God: My Flirtations with the Divine,” 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: I spent several years traveling the world,…
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Dishing Some Linguistic Dirt
Lewis Kupperman writes, “There is a Yiddish expression meaning to make mincemeat of someone or something that sounds like to make ‘ushenblottie,’” and he wants to know if I’m familiar with it. Mr. Kupperman’s “to make ushenblottie” is Yiddish makhn ash un blote — that is, “to make ashes and mud” of a person or…
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Escape from Williamsburg
Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots By Deborah Feldman Simon & Schuster, 272 pages, $23 Deborah Feldman’s memoir, “Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots,” begins with Feldman describing her father, a mentally disabled Hasid employed by pitying community members to preform simple tasks, like picking up people from the airport. Sometimes…
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Books The Red Devil
Earlier this week, Matthew Shaer wrote about the genesis of his book, “Among Righteous Men,” and divisions within the Crown Heights community. 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:…
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Looking Back: February 10, 2012
100 Years Ago in the Forward A resident of Manhattan’s Lower East Side, Freda Levinson, 19, decided to get revenge on her ex-boyfriend, William Kaufman, also from the Lower East Side, after, she claimed, he reneged on a promise to marry her. After hearing the bad news, Levinson bought a bottle of carbolic acid and…
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Thou Shalt Suspend Disbelief
Tourists thronged New York City’s Times Square over the holiday period. Some had come to take in the sights, others a Broadway play and still others the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were to be found in temporary residence at Discovery Times Square (“More than a museum”), on West 44th Street. Visit this “once-in-a-lifetime-exhibit”; “Experience firsthand…
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Books A House Divided
Matthew Shaer is the author of “Among Righteous Men: A Tale of Vigilantes and Vindication in Hasidic Crown Heights.” 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: In my last…
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