This is the Forward’s coverage of books and literature, including both non-fictional and fictional works.
Books
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Books Former Forward Hand Max Gross Schlubs It Up for All of New York to See
Former Forward hand and “From Schlub to Stud” author Max Gross is flaunting his schlubby ways on WCBS for all of New York to see. Now, some might be surprised to tune into WCBS and see a schlubby young man with a wild red Jewfro talking up a book with a subtitle like “How to…
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Books Obama Digs Roth, But McCain Prefers Wouk
A few weeks ago, The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg — who has lately established himself as a key contender for the title of Mr. Jewish Journalist — grilled Barack Obama about Israel and other topics of Jewish interest. Now, he covers some of the same ground with John McCain. Since Obama, in his interview, volunteered that…
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Books Quizzing Obama on the State of Israel — and the State of His Kishkes
The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg (who in the 1990s wrote for this rag) chatted this weekend with Barack Obama about Israel and Jewish issues. Goldberg, who recently penned a widely discussed article for the Atlantic looking at Israel’s difficult choices through the prism of the tensions between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and writer David Grossman, finds…
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Books Did Tolkien Take a Page From Purim?
Jewschool’s Ben Dreyfus notes a striking similarity between J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy masterpiece “The Lord of the Rings” and the Purim story: Haftarat Zachor (which is read twice this year here in Jerusalem) + Megillat Esther = The Lord of the Rings. One of them is totally plagiarized. After winning the war with Sauron, Isildur is…
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Books Klinghoffer: God Is a Conservative; Alterman: Jesus Is a Liberal
It gives me great pleasure to announce the upcoming publication of a book from Forward columnist David Klinghoffer, titled “How Would God Vote?: Why the Bible Commands You to Be a Conservative,” which is due out this summer from Doubleday. But while Klinghoffer believes that God is a conservative, Nation columnist Eric Alterman apparently thinks…
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Books Songbook Recaptures Lost Melodies
Heard any good Yiddish folksongs lately? Chances are good that the answer is “no.” Not because there aren’t any good Yiddish folksongs to be heard; for generations, the Yiddish-speaking Jews of Eastern Europe sang innumerable songs about love and loss, death and marriage. They sang to their children to soothe them to sleep, and they…
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Books The Water Carrier
Renowned scholar David G. Roskies is the Sol and Evelyn Henkind chair in Yiddish literature and culture at the Jewish Theological Seminary. The following excerpt is from his forthcoming memoir, “Yiddishlands” (Wayne State University Press). In the work, Roskies discusses his life and the life of his mother, and explores the Yiddish experience and historical…
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Books Goodbye, Grace
Writer Grace Paley died yesterday. A New York Times obit says that, “In a sense, her work was about what happened to the women that Roth and Bellow and Malamud’s men had loved and left behind.” Paley was 84.
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Antisemitism Decoded The antisemites are enjoying themselves
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Fast Forward UCLA student government condemns campus Hillel for hosting former hostage
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Opinion American Jews have a Hasan Piker problem. Solving it is going to hurt
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Sports Today’s American Jews finally have their era’s Sandy Koufax
In Case You Missed It
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Fast Forward Seismic shift in Israeli politics as opposition leaders Lapid and Bennett form joint party
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Fast Forward His kippah was a symbol of coexistence. Israeli police officers seized and destroyed it.
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Fast Forward DOJ’s indictment of Southern Poverty Law Center recalls Jewish groups’ use of informants to fight extremism
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News Inside Mamdani’s split decision on synagogue and school protests in NYC