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Mixing Mountain Musics
Somewhere in New York, perhaps at this very moment, someone is hosting a “picking party,” a bluegrass gathering in a private home where musicians sit and play tunes. And Margot Leverett, a 45-year-old clarinetist, is not invited. “They’re being very careful not to let me know where they are,” Leverett said in an interview with…
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A Prayer Group of Their Own
‘People are tired of the lack of intimacy that’s found in a lot of shuls,” said Shir Yaakov Feinstein-Feit. It’s a common complaint these days in Jewish communal circles, but Feinstein-Feit, 25, and his friends did something about it: They founded their own minyan, or prayer group. That minyan is Kol Zimrah (Hebrew for “Voice…
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Political Pollster Grows Into His Jewish Identity
Republican pollster Frank Luntz has seen his fair share of loss and disappointment working on the political campaigns of unsuccessful presidential candidates such as Pat Buchanan and Ross Perot. But the work Luntz has done for the Jewish community during the past year and a half has introduced him to a new, double-edged sadness. Researching…
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Something Turns, Words Catch
In last week’s column I wrote about the invention of new words in Hebrew to fill gaps in its vocabulary. But Hebrew, needless to say, is not the only language that has to keep up. Another is Yuchi, a Native-American language spoken fluently by several dozen people in northeastern Oklahoma. In need of a term…
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Tasty Treats Few and Far Between at Kosherfest
Far from being a fringe movement, kosher food is becoming as American as (non-meat) hot dogs and (nondairy) apple pie — a point that was driven home last month at the 2003 Kosherfest food trade show, held in New York’s Jacob Javits Convention Center. According to statistics compiled by the marketing firm IMC Events and…
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C O R R E C T I O N S
The November 7 article “There Once Was a World: ‘Jewish New York’ ” incorrectly identified the author of “Jewish New York: Notable Neighborhoods and Memorable Moments.” His name is Ira Wolfman. Due to an editing error, the pre-World War I Hashomer defense organization was incorrectly identified as “socialist” in a November 7 book review (“Hijacking…
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The Story Behind the Story
The new Walt Disney Concert Hall has an interesting history, one that traces an arc from the “polite” antisemitism of Los Angeles’s postwar Wasp elite to today’s open, mutually beneficial relationship between the city’s cultural institutions and its Jewish community. The story began in the 1950s, when the Chandler family, which owned the Los Angeles…
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The Literary Effects of Wordplay
Readers of the Bible approach the subject from a variety of perspectives. People with a historical bent use the text to reconstruct the history of ancient Israel. People with a theological bent use the text to understand ancient Jewish theology and/or to derive lessons of moral theology that speak to us still today. People with…
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IN OTHER WORDS…
No Land’s Man: Upon his return from the unofficial Israeli-Palestinian negotiations that produced the Geneva Understandings, Israeli novelist Amos Oz announced that “the gruntwork of making peace has already been done.” “The problem of the 1948 refugees, which is really the heart of our national security predicament, is resolved comprehensively, completely and absolutely outside the…
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A Lavish Home for the Sick Man of the Arts World
The music season has barely begun, yet the most important event of the year is already over. The zenith in question is the opening of the Walt Disney Concert Hall, the new home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The opening was, in fact, a series of concerts, held between October 23 and October 26, rather…
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Misguided Advice on Israeli Aid
Recently it came to my horrified attention that my Forward e-mail has been disappearing into the void of virtual reality — by the ream. Hundreds of letters were delivered into my mailbox but never came out the other side; many e-mails never made it into the mailbox in the first place. Last week the dedicated…
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