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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Books
Keeping Doubt Alive
Earlier this week, Eric Weiner wrote about carrots, fish, and Jewish souls and the pleasures of spiritual travel. His blog posts have been 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: Like most people, I…
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Film Festival Focuses on Disabilities
Evan Sneider, an alumnus of community theater and student films, got his big break in 2009 when a high school classmate, now a filmmaker, cast him as a lead in the feature film “Girlfriend.” The titular girlfriend is a cash-strapped single mother caught between a violent, volatile boyfriend and a newly flush suitor, played by…
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Looking Back: February 17, 2012
100 Years Ago in the Forward When Barnett Nemeth went to open his safe in his jewelry store on Manhattan’s Broome Street, he was surprised when two men rushed him, held a revolver to his head and said: “Hands up! We want a look in that safe.” While one of the bandits rifled through the…
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It’s ‘Kosher’ To Accept Real Jesus?
Kosher Jesus By Rabbi Shmuley Boteach Gefen Publishing House, 263 pages, $26 Despite Rabbi Shmuley Boteach’s best efforts in “Kosher Jesus,” some Jewish teachers and their messages are not worth reclaiming. Whether because of their fanciful interpretations of the Bible or their odd religious agendas, they are best ignored. I have in mind not Jesus…
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Do Jews Curse the Christians?
Cursing The Christians? A History of the Birkat Haminim By Ruth Langer Oxford University Press, 388 pages, $74 During a year studying medieval liturgical manuscripts, Ruth Langer found herself drawn to places where words, phrases and even a whole paragraph had been erased or, as she explained in an email to the Forward, “literally blacked…
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Books Yiddish Stories Not Lost in Translation
The Association of Jewish Libraries Guide to Yiddish Short Stories By Bennett Muraskin Ben Yehuda Press, 79 pages, $14.50 The title of this small but useful book might have been lengthened to include “in the English language,” but the point is taken. We are now in a veritable golden age of translation, though the “golden”…
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Books The Perils and Pleasures of Spiritual Travel
Earlier this week, Eric Weiner wrote about carrots, fish and Jewish souls. 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: I’ve written a book about my “spiritual journey,” fully aware…
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Tu B’Shvat a Holiday in Transition
Last Tu B’Shvat, the Museum of Jewish Heritage, located on Manhattan’s Battery Place, hosted a musical — “The Hatseller and the Monkeys” — and an arts and crafts event for children. This year, the museum has no nature-themed events on the docket to mark the Jewish new year’s celebration for trees, which begins on the…
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Books On Carrots and Fishes and Jewish Souls
Eric Weiner’s new book, “Man Seeks God: My Flirtations with the Divine,” is now available. 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: I spent several years traveling the world,…
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Dishing Some Linguistic Dirt
Lewis Kupperman writes, “There is a Yiddish expression meaning to make mincemeat of someone or something that sounds like to make ‘ushenblottie,’” and he wants to know if I’m familiar with it. Mr. Kupperman’s “to make ushenblottie” is Yiddish makhn ash un blote — that is, “to make ashes and mud” of a person or…
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Escape from Williamsburg
Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots By Deborah Feldman Simon & Schuster, 272 pages, $23 Deborah Feldman’s memoir, “Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots,” begins with Feldman describing her father, a mentally disabled Hasid employed by pitying community members to preform simple tasks, like picking up people from the airport. Sometimes…
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