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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Righteous Gentiles
Exodus 6:2–9:35 Not long ago my niece Shira sent me some comments on the weekly portion in which Moses was saved by Pharaoh’s daughter. She compared the historical events with the life stories of her two grandmothers, who had died at the end of a long, full life after first experiencing a childhood of terror…
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Books Top Israeli Literary Award Goes to Underdog
At a gala ceremony in Tel Aviv January 16, author Haggai Linik joined a select group of literary luminaries when his third novel, “Darush Lahshan” (“Prompter Needed”) was awarded Israel’s Sapir Prize for Literature. Inaugurated in 2000, the Sapir Prize is Israel’s most prestigious literary prize. Awarded by Mifal HaPayis — the National Lottery —…
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Recalling Guns of August and Israel
Born 100 years ago on the Olympian heights of Manhattan’s Upper East Side, her uncle, Henry Morgenthau, served as Franklin Roosevelt’s secretary of the Treasury, while her father, Maurice Wertheim, a successful investment banker, was on the War Production Board. Barbara Tuchman’s professional destiny seemed tied even as a toddler to the event that launched…
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Books Kafka: A Man as Puzzling as His Stories
John Kessel and James Patrick Kelly are the editors of “Kafkaesque: Stories Inspired by Franz Kafka.” Today, James Patrick Kelly writes about a man as puzzling as his stories. Their 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…
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Books Land of the Rising Zun
Yiddish-Japanese Dictionary/Yidish-Yapanish Verterbukh/Idisshu-go jiten Compiled and edited by Kazuo Ueda, with the aid of Holger Nath and Boris Kotlerman Daigakusyorin, 1302 pages, ¥60,000 Rabbi Marvin Tokayer of Great Neck, N.Y., knows from Japan. “In 1969, I was living in Tokyo and I got a telephone call at my house from a guy who was Japanese…
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Persons of (Linguistic) Interest
Forward reader Bill Morris writes a letter about the pejorative associations that some non-Jews who are not at all anti-Semitic have with the word “Jew,” observing, “I have non-Jewish friends who still balk at saying ‘Jew’ — one friend always says ‘Jewish person.’” It’s not only non-Jews. I’ve also occasionally heard American Jews — almost…
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Prime Ribs, Israel: Home Births; ‘Shiksa Song’
By now, you’ve probably never seen the video of Yisrael Beiteinu Knesset Member Anastasia Michaeli throwing water in the face of Raleb Majadele, an Arab-Israeli member of the Labor party. But you probably haven’t seen Noy Alooshe’s artful remix of it: And you may not have seen a commercial that shows where Michaeli might have…
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Books Q&A: Oliver Stone on Israel, Palestine and Newt Gingrich
Filmmaker Oliver Stone has been keeping busy. In research for his forthcoming Showtime documentary series, “The Untold History of the United States,” which re-examines crucial events in American history, Stone conducted a seven hour interview with Tariq Ali, the Pakistani-born activist and intellectual who inspired the Rolling Stones song “Street Fighting Man.” That dialog formed…
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Thesis to Conclusion in 23 Years
In 1989, a densely written, 600-page doctoral dissertation landed, unbidden, on the desk of Peter Dimock, who at that time was an editor specializing in intellectual projects at Vintage Books, a division of Random House. In Dimock’s appraisal, the work, by a newly minted clinical psychologist named John Kerr, was not ready to be a…
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Books Destination Bat Mitzvahs
Earlier this week, Shulamit Reinharz and Barbara Vinick wrote about the history of the bat mizvah and Barbara Vinick shared her own story. Today, Shulamit Reinharz writes about meaningful celebrations away from home. Their blog posts are being featured this week on The Arty Semite courtesy of the Jewish Book Council and My Jewish Learning’s…
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Last Song of Hitler’s Favorite Crooner
Right up until his death, on December 24 at age 108, Dutch-born singer and actor Johannes Heesters was still performing the songs that had made him famous and, in some circles, infamous. Beloved and much honored in Germany and Austria for a steady stream of stage, screen and television roles and recordings, Heesters owed his…
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