Michael Twitty’s ‘Koshersoul’ blends history, culture and culinary identity
The master chef and culinary historian's new book looks at food, the Black and Jewish diasporas — and social justice
Michael Twitty
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The Schmooze Eurovision, A New Paul Simon Biography And More To Read, Watch And Do This Weekend
As always, the world is in tumult, no one can be trusted, everything you believed is a lie and our last refuge is art. Or it soon will be, if another important source of honesty — a bummer, yes, but a bummer that matters — continues to be depleted. I speak, of course, about the…
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Culture From Gorka To Carlebach: The Forward Staff’s Favorite Articles Of 2017
2017 has, collectively, been few people’s ideas of a fun year. Still, it’s welcomed a wealth of excellent journalism. While we’ve previously celebrated work from other outlets, the Forward’s staff has also chosen our own most exceptional work from this year — our 120th in business. My picks include Sam Kestenbaum’s deeply reported “How This…
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Food Jewish African-American Writer Cooks Up A Fusion Of Two Identities
Michael Twitty dressed in the outfit that slaves wore in the American South — wool stockings, waistcoat and kerchief tied around his neck — to cook meat in an open-hearth oven on a historic Virginia plantation, more than one memory of slavery flashed through his mind. One memory, of his African-American ancestors in the South, seems obvious. The…
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Opinion My Black History Spans More Than A Month
Black History Month has always proved complicated in multicultural America. The great historian Carter G. Woodson, the second African American to receive his doctorate from Harvard, created Negro History Week in 1926. Then Dr. Woodson, founder of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, later expanded Negro History Week to Black…
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Opinion Kippahed While Black: The Troubling Resurgence of ‘Shvartze’ and ‘Kushi’
In the past few years, the words “kushi” and “shvartze” have enjoyed, let’s say, an unfortunate comeback. A few years ago, a prominent rabbinic scholar came under fire for suggesting that Jews should not commit crimes such as molestation — not necessarily because they were wrong, but because they would be put in jail with…
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A Year of Curses and Many Blessings Michael Twitty
The Jewish Afroculinarian A food historian, Michael Twitty, might be an unlikely voice of popular protest, but his blog, Afroculinaria, was one of the sites that people went to for passionate commentary on #BlackLivesMatter and the homophobic Florida nightclub shooting in June. Twitty, 39, is black, Jewish and gay, and has been writing about history,…
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Culture Michael Twitty, Black Jewish Foodie, Talks ‘Culinary Justice’
(Haaretz) — “Only as a Jew [wearing a skullcap], white women offer me rides wherever I am going. I’m like, ‘White woman, you know I am black, right?’” With that sarcasm-laced remark, Michael Twitty won the hearts of the dozens of students who had gathered on a cold Thursday afternoon in November to hear the historian…
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