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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Adam Yauch and the Adolescent Sublime
Of all the Beastie Boys, I had the least attachment to Adam Yauch. It’s important to say this at the beginning because it’s impossible to talk about the Beastie Boys as individuals without talking about the group, and it’s impossible to talk about them as a band — to talk about their music — without…
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Books Author Blog: Blazing Saddles It Wasn’t
Earlier this week, Gerald Kolpan shared the story behind Eli Gershonson, a photo gallery of some of the historical figures in his novel, and the story behind how he came to write “Magic Words.” His blog posts are featured on The Arty Semite courtesy of the Jewish Book Council and My Jewish Learning’s Author Blog…
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Jews Are a ‘Race,’ Genes Reveal
Legacy: A Genetic History of the Jewish People By Harry Ostrer Oxford University Press, 288 Pages, $24.95 In his new book, “Legacy: A Genetic History of the Jewish People,” Harry Ostrer, a medical geneticist and professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, claims that Jews are different, and the differences are not…
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Britain’s Jewish Press Baroness
The First Lady of Fleet Street: The Life of Rachel Beer — Crusading Heiress and Newspaper Pioneer Bantam Books, 348 pages, $30 By Eilat Negev and Yehuda Koren In an era when women were not permitted to vote, when marriage was the only vocation that proper girls were encouraged to pursue, when doctors linked too…
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Books A Jewish Magician at the Egyptian Theater
Earlier this week, Gerald Kolpan shared the story behind Eli Gershonson and a photo gallery of some of the historical figures in his novel “Magic Words.” 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…
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Is ‘Halachic’ Going Mainstream?
Whatever we may think of advertising — a capitalist tool, an agent of manipulation, a bravura display of wit and verbal dexterity, the stuff of an irresistible television show such as “Mad Men” — it’s hard to conceive of modern life without it. In the absence of advertisements, whether print, electronic or digital, our newspapers,…
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Books Author Blog: Historical Figures in ‘Magic Words’
Visiting blogger Gerald Kolpan shares some of the historical figures in his latest novel, “Magic Words: The Tale of a Jewish Boy-Interpreter, the World’s Most Estimable Magician, a Murderous Harlot, and America’s Greatest Indian Chief.” His blog posts are featured on The Arty Semite courtesy of the Jewish Book Council and My Jewish Learning’s Author…
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Living With Isaac Bashevis Singer
Who could live with Isaac Bashevis Singer? The sexual escapades of the most successful Yiddish writer in America — and the one whom most Yiddish literati loved to hate — were public knowledge, in large part because he himself built his reputation as a Casanova in his own fiction, where he was chased into the…
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Books Author Blog: The Return of Eli Gershonson
Gerald Kolpan’s newest book, “Magic Words: The Tale of a Jewish Boy-Interpreter, the World’s Most Estimable Magician, a Murderous Harlot, and America’s Greatest Indian Chief,” is now available. 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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From Siberia To the Lower East Side
Rewriting Russia: Jacob Gordin’s Yiddish Drama By Barbara Henry University of Washington Press, 276 pages, $35 Barbara Henry’s new book recounts a telling anecdote about the opening of Jacob Gordin’s first Yiddish play, in 1891. As the play progressed, the New York audience became restless; it wanted more songs and diversion than it received from…
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How Do You Say ‘Freebie’ in Hebrew?
How do you say “freebie” in Hebrew? This was the question facing the daily newspaper Haaretz when called upon to translate Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s remark, delivered in Jerusalem in English on April 15, that the United States and Europe had given Iran a “freebie” by deferring further negotiations over its nuclear program until late…
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