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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I have seen the future of America — in a pastrami sandwich in Queens
San Wei, which serves pastrami sandwiches along with churros and biang biang noodles, represents an immigrant's fulfillment of the American dream
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Was There Anything Jewish About Lucian Freud?
British artist Lucian Freud died July 20 at 88, after a long and successful but also contentious career. Born in Berlin, where his father, Ernst, was an architect, Freud came to Britain with his parents in 1933 to escape Nazi Germany. Five years later, as the Nazi noose tightened, his grandfather, Sigmund Freud, left Vienna…
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Books Improving Moral Vocabulary
Eric Greitens is the author of “The Heart and the Fist: The Education of a Humanitarian, the Making of a Navy SEAL.” His 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…
The Latest
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How Israel Became the Promised Land of Eggplant
Forward reader Mike Benn writes: “A distinct childhood memory of visits to my maternal grandmother’s home is of eating bronjenas. This was an eggplant dish made by grilling the eggplant over a naked flame and then scooping out the cooked contents. Recently, I’ve been wondering about the word. “My grandmother was born in Palestine in…
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August 5, 2011
100 Years Ago in The Forward It’s never a good idea to fall asleep on the train. Just ask Charles Cohen, a fish peddler on New York City’s Essex Street. Recently, Cohen zonked out on the Second Avenue Elevated Line and got a lesson he’ll never forget. After a hard day of selling fish on…
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In the Occupied Territories, Order Trumps Law
The audience was remarkably quiet during a screening of “The Law in These Parts” at the Jerusalem Film Festival. My fellow Israelis, who usually have no qualms about exchanging opinions during a movie, or even about answering an occasional cell phone call, sat absolutely still. Even after the movie ended, there was a moment of…
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Books How the Eldridge Street Synagogue Was Saved
Crossposted From Samuel Guber’s Jewish Art & Monuments Beyond the Facade: A Synagogue, A Restoration, A Legacy: The Museum at Eldridge Street By Roberta Brandes Gratz, Larry Bortniker and Bonnie Dimun Museum at Eldridge Street and Scala Publishers, 176 pages, $45.00 In “Beyond the Facade,” a history of the almost 30-year effort to restore New…
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Books The Strength of Judaism and the Courage of Social Justice
Eric Greitens‘s most recent book, “The Heart and the Fist: The Education of a Humanitarian, the Making of a Navy SEAL,” is now available. His 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…
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Henri Raczymow Takes Readers on Journeys Imbued With Jewish History
When Aby Wieviorka, the eminent Paris-based Yiddish translator, sought a collaborator for French versions of Mendele Moykher Sforim’s 1888 novella “Fishke der Krumer” (“Fishke the Lame”) and Oyzer Warshavsky’s 1920 novel “Shmuglars” (“Smugglers”), he turned to an ideal colleague. As French readers have long noted, Henri Raczymow combines literary refinement with a deep emotional understanding…
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Rowing Against the Tide
San Francisco’s 31st annual Jewish Film Festival opened at the historic Castro Theatre on July 21 with the North American premiere of the Israeli film “Mabul” (“The Flood”). Winner of the best film and best cinematography categories at the Haifa International Film Festival in September 2010, and having earned six Ophir (Israeli Academy Award) nominations,…
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Summer’s Overflowing With Jewish Films and Festivals
‘Captain America’ The Captain America character, created in 1940 by writer Joe Simon and artist Jack Kirby, was originally an allegory for American intervention in World War II. Now a summer blockbuster by director Joe Johnston, “Captain America: The First Avenger,” casts a nostalgic eye on a more innocent-seeming time. But with the sheen of…
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Too Much Of a Good Thing
It is peculiar, in a film based on the tendency of people to act wrongfully, for all the characters to do exactly what is right. But this is what happens in “Sarah’s Key,” directed by Gilles Paquet-Brenner and based on the novel of the same name by Tatiana de Rosnay. The film tells the story…
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