This is the Forward’s coverage of books and literature, including both non-fictional and fictional works.
Books
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Books An oral history of the most epic Jewish summer camp prank ever
The summer before 10th grade, some friends of mine pulled off what I have long thought had to be the most outrageous prank of all time: spoiling the biggest twist in the Harry Potter series for an entire sleepaway camp. It happened at Camp Ramah in Ojai, Calif., on July 18, 2005, two days after…
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Books How classic Yiddish tales are being brought back to life — and in English too!
David Forman’s newest book is an old one. Rich with tales of giants, the Tudor court and highwaymen besieging a humble Jewish village, “The Clever Little Tailor” is the first English translation and bilingual edition of Yiddish writer Solomon Simon’s 1933 collection of stories about Shnayderl the tailor. The book is noteworthy for having the…
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Books ACT UP changed AIDS activism. Sarah Schulman wants us to learn its lessons
Sarah Schulman had already been covering AIDS as a journalist for five years when she attended a 1987 demonstration organized by the newly-formed AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, better known as ACT UP. ACT UP members picketed outside New York City’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center for 72 hours in protest of the sluggish pace…
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Books Looking for Hope: A writer finds inspiration in Jewish-Palestinian friendship, especially now
Haviva Ner-David was just starting to promote her debut novel, about the intersecting lives of two Israeli women — one Jewish, one Palestinian — when last month’s military escalation with Gaza erupted, accompanied by the worst internecine fighting between Jewish and Arab citizens in recent memory. Ner David, a rabbi, writer, and mother of seven,…
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Books She followed rookie doctors through the very worst of COVID
(JTA) — (New York Jewish Week via JTA) — For most New Yorkers, the early days of COVID-19 were synonymous with eerily empty streets, the constant wail of sirens, and the clapping and cheering for health care workers. But what was it really like for the doctors and other health care professionals who found themselves…
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Books In Brooklyn’s hipster Williamsburg neighborhood, Hasidic Jews are the real counterculture
(JTA) — (New York Jewish Week via JTA) — Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood is known as a center of gentrification and a gathering place for the cool young hipsters of New York City. A short walk from the Lower East Side over the Williamsburg Bridge, it’s also home to one of the most concentrated Hasidic Jewish communities in…
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Books Feeling at home in my Yiddish-speaking bubble
The ten students in my Yiddish class are of differing political persuasions but we're united in our love of the language.
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Books This nonagenarian knows more about the cellphone than you — because he invented it
After working from home for over a year, I still have no idea how Zoom backgrounds work, which means the various strangers I interview can look past me to see my ailing succulents, unopened prestige cookbooks and a childhood’s worth of participation trophies. Unlike me, a supposed “digital native,” Martin Cooper is old enough that…
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Opinion Marco Rubio invoked a medieval antisemitic trope in justifying war with Iran
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Antisemitism Decoded After Minneapolis, a YouTuber comes for Jewish ‘welfare queens’
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News Reza Pahlavi, Iran’s exiled crown prince, has a plan for his people’s future — if they’ll have him
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Culture How an Amish Mennonite school in Arkansas went viral with a song by an Orthodox Jew
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Fast Forward Andrea Weiss, trailblazing Reform rabbi who merged scholarship and activism, dies at 60
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Fast Forward Jewish artist expelled from Argentinian street fair after dispute over Palestinian flag: ‘Zionists out’
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