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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T.S. Eliot’s On-Again, Off-Again Anti-Semitism
Reading T.S. Eliot in high school, we stumbled over his sneering references to Jews. And with the 1989 publication of “T.S. Eliot and Prejudice” (University of California Press) by Christopher Ricks, and 1995’s “T.S. Eliot, Anti-Semitism and Literary Form” by Anthony Julius (Thames & Hudson), poetry lovers have a clear account of how Eliot, author…
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Books A Picture Perfect Day
Earlier this week, June Hersh wrote about her Jewish culinary journey and unraveling the mystery of Jewish food. 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: I am not Martha Stewart,…
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Adam Michnik Strains for Solidarity Between Poles and Jews
In Search of Lost Meaning: The New Eastern Europe By Adam Michnik Translated by Roman S. Czarny Edited by Irina Grudzinska Gross University of California Press, 248 pages, $29.95 Even as a young Communist in postwar Poland, Adam Michnik demonstrated the courage of his convictions. He was first arrested in 1964, at age 18, for…
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Books Journey to the Land of Words
Crossposted from Haaretz Until a year ago, Ruvik Rosenthal was sure he had no imagination. Around age 10, he did start writing adventure stories, but at 12, “I had decided to become a journalist, to go for the real things.” After years of writing specialized dictionaries, such as a comprehensive dictionary of slang and a…
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For Playwright Itamar Moses, Rambling Comes With Craft
Itamar Moses rambles. It’s a distinguishing, endearing facet of his conversation. “I’m not sure what my point is.” He was working on changes to his new play, “Completeness,” when we spoke on the phone a few weeks before its September 13 opening at Playwrights Horizons. The characters in it also ramble, but they have a…
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Books Unraveling the Mystery of Jewish Food
June Hersh is the author of “The Kosher Carnivore: The Ultimate Meat and Poultry Book,” available this week. 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: As a food writer you…
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Israeli Tent City Artists Bring Creativity to Masses
Zoya Cherkassky has been present at every protest in Israel so far this summer, even the million-person march for social justice, held September 3. She also went out to the tent cities in Tel Aviv and Jaffa to paint what she saw there. And while she was there, she offered to help strangers in drawing…
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Looking Back: September 23
100 Years Ago in the Forward A large group of Jews wearing tallitot and holding prayer books and synagogue tickets showed up at a small Manhattan theater on Clinton Street for the High Holy Days. The problem was, the place was locked. Very upset, the crowd started banging on the doors. Eventually the boss showed…
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Bringing Jewish Spirit of Community to Burning Man Fest
On a Friday night in early September, more than 150 people gathered under a domelike open structure built in the desert to sing, pray, light candles and share in the traditions of the Sabbath. The open-air design, decorated with colorful scarves and an illuminated Star of David, is not the typical place you might imagine…
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Books My Culinary Journey
June Hersh is the author of “The Kosher Carnivore: The Ultimate Meat and Poultry Book,” available this week. 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: If you had told me…
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A Honeymoon of Jewish Study
Timna Liberman writes from Chicago to ask: “Are you able to shed any light on the etymology of the word kallah in the Hebrew expression yarchei kallah, which refers to study months?” Yarḥei kallah, which on the face of it translates as “months of the bride” or “bridal months,” was the name of a custom…
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