This is the Forward’s coverage of books and literature, including both non-fictional and fictional works.
Books
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Books ‘I Think You’re Totally Wrong’ Goes to Hollywood
Photo courtesy Rabbit Bandini Productions Capital punishment. Bungee jumping. Cormac McCarthy. Waterboarding. Jackson Pollock. “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” Abortion. Rupert Murdoch. The Seattle Mariners. The war in Iraq. The “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.” Disneyland. Balding. These are just few of the subjects David Shields and Caleb Powell cover in their new book, “I…
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Books National Jewish Book Award Winners Are Here
The Jewish Book Council has announced the recipients of the 2015 National Jewish Book Awards. The council began giving out this award — the most prestigious of its kind — in 1948. Past winners include Philip Roth, Chaim Potok and Cynthia Ozick. It’s a pretty important way of giving recognition to the year’s most outstanding…
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Books 12 Books We’re Looking Forward To in 2015
In 2015, Jewish stories will come in diverse guises — from flights of magical realism to groundbreaking history and biography. Assimilation and tradition assert their warring claims. While memoirist Judy Brown chronicles her escape from a suffocating religious upbringing, Bosnian immigrant and literary prodigy Aleksandar Hemon continues his embrace of Jewish characters and themes. Anniversaries…
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Books Let’s Make 2015 the Year of the Arab Jew
Call it a confirmation bias. Everywhere I turned this year, I saw a new expression of Arab Jewish identity. The revival seems to be happening across all fields — literature, food, music — yet somehow nobody’s talking about it. As an Arab Jewish writer (my family hails from Morocco, India and Iraq), I couldn’t be…
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Books The Most Jewish True Crime Book Ever
Photo: Germain McMicking/Riverhead Books John Safran’s literary debut, “God’ll Cut You Down: The Tangled Tale of A White Supremacist, A Black Hustler, A Murder, and How I Lost Year in Mississippi,” arrived in the U.S. with momentum. The Australian Crime Writers Association had already named it the best true crime book of 2014. New York…
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Books The Year of the Former Soviet Author
In the recently published memoir “A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka,” Lev Golinkin recounts the story of his family’s 1989 departure from the rapidly disintegrating Soviet Union. The Golinkins make their way to America, relying on the kindness of strangers; unsure of what they might find, they are guided largely by the…
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Books ‘Jewish Oprah’ Carolyn Starman Hessel Turns Page From Jewish Book Council
(JTA) — When Carolyn Starman Hessel joined the New York-based Jewish Book Council in 1994 – at the request of friend Marsha Posner – she knew nothing about the publishing world. Since then, she’s been called the “Jewish Oprah” for her ability to help authors find audiences, and has enjoyed enormous clout and influence among…
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Books Few Bright Spots for Jewish Books in 2014
It’s been a brutal year. As always, the world is in chaos. We hear about it every time we read the news, or turn on the television, or check our Facebook feeds. ISIS, Gaza, Ukraine, Ferguson, campus rape. Russian oligarchs have taken over New York City. Corporate citizens have taken over the government. Though the…
Most Popular
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Opinion In Bruce Springsteen’s new anti-ICE protest song, a nod to Minnesota’s own Bob Dylan
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Holy Ground A millennial rabbi built a synagogue where others have closed. Her maverick ideas are becoming a model.
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Fast Forward Chabad ‘let me down,’ suspect said, in hours before allegedly attacking their headquarters
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News What We Know About Jeffrey Epstein’s Childhood
In Case You Missed It
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Fast Forward ‘Don’t be a wimp’: Josh Shapiro, Philly DA Larry Krasner spar over ICE-Nazi comparisons
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Culture Robert Kraft’s new Super Bowl ad about antisemitism already feels dated
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Culture The Muppets are my rabbi, and they should be yours
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Yiddish „מײַן זינגען אויף ייִדיש האָט גאָרנישט צו טאָן מיט נאָסטאַלגיע““My singing in Yiddish has nothing to do with nostalgia“
חוה אַלבערשטיין האָט לעצטנס אַרויסגעלאָזט איר אויטאָביאָגראַפֿיע, וווּ זי באַשרײַבט די ראָלע פֿון ייִדיש אין איר רעפּערטואַר און אין איר לעבן
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