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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Haggadah, New and Improved
The New American Haggadah, which some of you may have on your Seder table this year, has gotten enough publicity without me, thus saving me the need to introduce it. There are things I like about it, such as its stunning graphic design, and things I don’t, such as the overall triteness and sometimes irritating…
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Looking Back: April 13, 2012
100 Years Ago in the Forward When Sarah Ehrlich arrived at her Bronx home, she heard a noise in the upstairs bedroom. Fully aware that no one in her family should have been home at the time, she realized that it must have been a burglar. “Who’s there?” she yelled. A voice called out from…
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Books Author Blog: Passover for Non-Bolivians
Aviva Kanoff is the author of “The No-Potato Passover” Her blog posts are being 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: By now, most people have heard of quinoa, the superfood. With plenty of fiber, protein…
The Latest
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Books Moshe Kasher Responds to Critics
Moshe Kasher is the author of “Kasher in the Rye: The True Tale of a White Boy from Oakland Who Became a Drug Addict, Criminal, Mental Patient, and Then Turned 16.” His blog posts are being featured on The Arty Semite courtesy of the Jewish Book Council and My Jewish Learning’s Author Blog Series. For…
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Why Are American Jews So Liberal?
Why are Jews so liberal? Every few years, the question gets asked, often with the unspoken follow-up “… and what can we do to change that?” This year, Republican super PACs are drooling with anticipation. If you think the attacks on Mitt Romney by Sheldon Adelson — I mean Gingrich — I mean a Super-PAC…
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Jewish Gangsters Get Their Day at Museum
In the mid-20th century, a cadre of tough Jews, shedding the bookish bearing of exile, went forth to create a new society in a forbidding desert. Armed to the teeth, they lived outside the law and built their outpost by any means necessary. Against all odds, despite implacable enemies, the desert bloomed. Think you already…
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Books Author Blog: Waiting Too Long To Teach About Israel
Mitchell Bard is the author/editor of 22 books, including “Israel Matters” and “The Arab Lobby: The Invisible Alliance That Undermines America’s Interests in the Middle East.” His blog posts are being 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,…
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Arikha’s Art of Rigor and Confrontation
Avigdor Arikha’s first New York exhibition since 2007 is an unflinching record of how he apprehended the world. Since his breakthrough 1973 conversion from abstraction to “post-abstract representational painting,” Arikha’s paintings, drawings and prints of friends, family, himself and familiar locations, were done, without exception, during one daylight sitting. Looking at Arikha’s impressive and complex…
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Difference Between a Slob and a ‘Zhlob’
Judith Ronat writes from Kfar Saba in Israel: “The etymologies in my dictionary don’t support any connection, but I would like to hear your opinion. Is there any connection between the Yiddish word zhlob and the English ‘slob’?” There is a connection, but it’s not etymological. Rather, it’s that English “slob” has influenced the meaning…
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Books Author Blog: Where the Debate on Judaism Began
Earlier this week, Rabbi Barry Schwartz wrote about needing more Jewish debate and the first Jewish debate. 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 mid-19th century in Germany…
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Etgar Keret Copes With Newfound Fame
Suddenly, a Knock on the Door By Etgar Keret Translated by Nathan Englander, Miriam Shlesinger and Sondra Silverston FSG Originals, 208 pages, $14 Once upon a time, Etgar Keret was a humble guy scribbling out weird and fantastical stories about Israel’s version of Generation X. With his first few books, he gained a reputation in…
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