This Week in Forward Arts and Culture

Binyomin Ginzberg profiles Chilik Frank, a master Breslov clarinet player.

Mark Oppenheimer reviews Lee Siegel’s “Are You Serious?: How To Be True and Get Real in the Age of Silly.”

On the 72nd anniversary of the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, we feature Israeli author Ada Pagis’s story about a speculative image.

Josh Lambert reviews Harvey Pekar and Paul Buhle’s “Yiddishkeit: Jewish Vernacular & the New Land,” a “postvernacular tour de force.”

Philologos explains why Amy Winhouse really was a “nice Jewish girl.”

Rex Wiener describes how rabbis are taking sermon tips from Hollywood screenwriters.

Benjamin Ivry appreciates the work of French novelist Patrick Modiano whose imagination still dwells on his father’s murky activities surviving in Occupied Paris.