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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Christmas, Hanukkah or Apocalypse?
[ ![][2]][2] If you’re a Jewish parent like me, you always dread December. There’s the relentless onslaught of Christmas carols and decorations. The perpetual question of, “Do I try to compete and distort Hanukkah, or honor the holiday but nonpluss my kids?” And, worst of all for a Jew, there’s all that wintertime indoor-heat chafing….
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Books Q&A: Michael Ian Black on ‘Doing it Right’
Speaking with The Arty Semite over the phone, Michael Ian Black paused and said: “That’s weird. I’m in the hotel hallway walking towards my room. On the carpet I see a pair of underwear and recognize them as my own. Now why in the world is a pair of my own underwear sitting in the…
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Scientist Discovers Plaid in the Spectrum
[ ![][2]][2] Organic food stores, children’s book publishers, LGBT groups and leprechauns have been thrown into turmoil by the discovery by Noah Obadiah, a professor at the Technion in Haifa, of an extra color in the rainbow. Although he discovered the color nestling between blue and indigo several months ago, he was waiting for the…
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Pronouns of the World Unite!
[ ![][2]][2] When I first started writing this weekly column, almost 115 years ago, Karl Marx was the Simon Cowell of the era — a loudmouth from Britain passing judgment on the working class. Being dead hadn’t stopped Marx and I’d be surprised if it stops Cowell. At that time it was barely acceptable to…
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An Immigrant’s Life, Part 2
In 1906, Nasye Frug wrote to the Forverts about her life as a new wife and recent immigrant. Even before receiving unhelpful wedding gifts, she had realized that the Goldene Medina of the New World was not turning out to be quite the life she had imagined. Writing about her childhood in the Old Country…
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Haman, LDS Church in Rehab Shock
[ ![][2]][2] UPDATE The man whose three-cornered hat inspired millions of delicious cookies, is in rehab. Haman the Agagite was spotted Monday checking into the Betty Ford Center to be treated for his longstanding addiction to anti-Semitism. He traveled from Persia, and through millennia, to seek help at the famed addiction treatment center in Rancho…
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Weaponizing Lieberman; Keeping Up With the Shalits; Juicing Jews
<img src=”http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/forward-com/id351434716″ alt=””> In a special mid-week Backward podcast, host Josh Nathan-Kazis talks with Dan Friedman and Tony Weiss about Israel’s recent threat to launch Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman into Iranian airspace. Then, the group turns to reported familial strife in the Shalit household, just months after imprisoned IDF soldier Gilad Shalit was released by…
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Talking Comics With Diane Noomin
Pioneer of women’s comics Diane Noomin talks to Michael Kaminer about Wimmen’s Comix, Twisted Sister and her new book, “Glitz-2-Go.” The many and varied adventures of Didi Glitz — the book’s central character and Noomin’s comic alter ego of several decades — both delight and instruct. Noomin uses Didi to combine the personal and the…
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An Immigrant’s Life, Told Graphically
Liana Finck reimagines a classic story from A Bintel Brief in graphic form
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Nudge, Nudge. Wink, Wink.
Charles Krauthamer of Teaneck, N.J. (not to be confused with the Washington columnist of the same name), writes to ask: “A word used in Israel to mean ‘to pester’ is l’najez. I always assumed that it came from the Yiddish word ‘nudge’ until I was told that it came from Arabic. Can you help?” The…
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Books Author Blog: Finding My Religion
Earlier this week, Michelle Haimoff discussed her unlikely in-laws and having immigrant parents, baby boomers, and parental expectations. Her 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: I went to a…
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News ‘Don’t give up on us now’: Israel peace summit convenes thousands to aim for elusive progress
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Fast Forward A GOP lawmaker tried to put a Holocaust denier on New Hampshire’s Holocaust education board