Out and About: PEN Literary Awards; Schwartz’s Deli, the Musical

Today would have been George Gershwin?s 112th birthday. Image by Wiki Commons/LOC
-
How a machinist named Martin Cohen became the pre-eminent photographer of New York’s Latin music scene.
-
Montreal’s Schwartz’s Hebrew Delicatessen is set to be turned into a musical.
-
Is it time to update the Hebrew alphabet for the Internet age?
-
Read an interview with Allen Ginsberg collaborator and “Howl!” illustrator Eric Drooker.
-
The trailer for “Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer” is now out.
-
The Jewish Manuscript Project gives us a peek inside the creative process of poet David Lehman.
-
Teruah offers an appreciation of Jeremiah Lockwood’s Nigun Project, but also has some issues with it.
-
David Mamet has been honored with a PEN American Center literary award for “Master American Dramatist,” as has Michael Scammell for his biography of Arthur Koestler (reviewed in the Forward here). The $25,000 Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction went to Don DeLillo.
-
In more somber news, Isaac Babel’s widow and Moscow subway designer Antonina Pirozhkova, ’50s heartthrob Eddie Fisher, and classical music critic Jacob Siskind have passed away.
-
Tomorrow night is Jake Marmer’s very excellent-sounding “Jazz Talmud.”
-
Today is the 200th yarhtzeit of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, and one community is celebrating with — what else? — a “Nachmanifest!”
-
Today is (or would have been) George Gershwin’s 112th birthday, which is as good a reason as any for a little “Fantasia”:
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 2
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 3
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 4
Fast Forward Cory Booker proclaims, ‘Hineni’ — I am here — 19 hours into anti-Trump Senate speech
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ includes 17% tariffs on Israeli imports, even as Israel cancels tariffs on US goods
-
Fast Forward Hillel CEO says he shares ‘concerns’ over campus deportations, calls for due process
-
Fast Forward Jewish Princeton student accused of assault at protest last year is found not guilty
-
News ‘Qatargate’ and the web of huge scandals rocking Israel, explained
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.