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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An American Landscape Architect and His Sabra Designs
In tough economic times, parents may think twice about splashing out on a once-in-a-lifetime spectacular bar mitzvah voyage. But “A Life Spent Changing Places,” a posthumously published memoir by the American Jewish landscape designer Lawrence Halprin, who died in 2009 at age 93, offers justification for wild splurging. When the Bronx-born and Brooklyn-raised Halprin’s 13th…
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Bringing Modern Dance Down to Earth
Noa Wertheim stands onstage with the Vertigo Dance Company, adjusting a dancer’s leg and redirecting a turn. If she disagrees with a step, her head shakes a cascade of wispy, brown hair into her eyes. Wertheim is an architect. She constructs an edifice of movement, pattern and line. Working toward perfection in every rehearsal, she…
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Polish Play About Anti-Semitism Debuts in America
A passing nod. A borrowed cup of sugar. A shared fence. A watchful eye on the house. That’s what neighbors are for. But what happens when neighbors turn and become enemies? That’s the question that consumed Warsaw-based playwright Tadeusz Slobodzianek on learning that the black-and-white Polish Holocaust history he had learned at school was actually…
The Latest
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Mixed Metaphors, Conflicts and Sex at Venice Film Fest
For the 11 days of the 68th Venice International Film Festival, which ran in September, the stars walked the red carpet of the Palazzo del Cinema, the main cinema venue adorned with flags of the 35 countries represented at this year’s installment of the world’s oldest film fest. From the middle of the building billowed…
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Looking Back: October 21
100 Years Ago in the Forward In a heartbreaking meeting of relatives of the 145 victims of the Triangle Waist Company fire, hundreds protested the fact that no one has been brought to justice for the crimes of negligence that caused the fire and the deaths of all the shop workers. As sobs were heard…
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A New Kittel To Provide Hope in the New Year
My childhood memories of this festive season are mixed with being ridiculously inappropriately dressed for the weather. Insisting that I wore my new winter clothes, I would swelter in the heat of an Indian summer. But having new clothes was, and still is, a part of Yom Tov. Rosh Hashana/Sukkot are conveniently placed in the…
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New ‘Maus’ Is Virtual Memoir of Father
Metamaus, A Look Inside a Modern Classic, Maus By Art Spiegelman Pantheon, 300 pages, $35 Sitting forlornly on my bookshelf is a dusty, book-shaped box containing an antiquated item known as a CD- ROM. Titled, “Maus,” it was produced in 1992 and epitomized the cutting edge of hypertext at that time. Containing digitized versions of…
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Books Sukkot and Social Justice
Rabbi Jill Jacobs is the author of “Where Justice Dwells: A Hands-On Guide to Doing Social Justice in Your Jewish Community.” Her 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 initial…
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‘Bored To Death’ Brings Brooklyn to TV
One of the things I love about New York is the way the culture constantly beams my surroundings back to me. It gives life a different feel than it has in other places; the extra layer of reality bestowed by art seems to rub off a little bit when it’s my reality also. Seeing iconic…
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American Jews and Israel: What’s the Confusion?
That there has been a realignment of American Jewish attitudes toward Israel is by now apparent and heavily commented on. In some quarters, this has been seen as an earth-shattering, Judaism-betraying paroxysm of collective self-hatred. Yet in fact it is entirely logical. For years, Jewish moderates like me have held a curious combination of views:…
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West Side Story, With a Shofar Blast
Why does it begin with a shofar call? Once you compare the famous, startling first three notes of Leonard Bernstein’s “West Side Story” score with a real shofar sounding “Tekiah g’dolah,” as I did in 1996 to demonstrate this point on WNYC, the resemblance is undeniable. Once you notice it, this shofar theme is woven…
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