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Culture Currents

With Sephora Markson Hartz and Jesse Tisch
 
Editors Jesse Tisch and Sephora Markson Hartz discuss important and trivial Jewish topics.
 
Jesse Tisch: It’s the 3rd day of Channukah, and here we are talking about...Chrismakkuh.
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Sephora Markson Hartz: Ummm...I think it’s Chrismukkah. Such insensitivity!  

JT: You’re right. I’ve already offended at least two groups: Christians and editors. In any event, bring our readers up to speed: What is the kerfluffle over this impossible-to-spell, made-up holiday?

SMH: Back on December 14, Jordana Horn — a writer for Kveller — wrote a piece with the following, rather telling title: “Actually, You Can’t Celebrate Hanukkah AND Christmas.” But, like the spelling of Chanukah/Channukah/Hanukkah itself, there are many who contend that you can celebrate any way you choose. Read on.
 
 
By Sephora Markson HartzEmma-Goldman-Revolution-As-A-Way-Of-Life-By-Vivian-Gornick.jpg

The name Emma Goldman has long garnered strong reactions. After all, J. Edgar Hoover called her "the most dangerous woman in America." But that's understandable,  considering Goldman herself unapologetically crusaded against centralized government, gender inequality, and labor rights violations. An anarchist, agitator, and advocate of free love, in the early 20th century Goldman was an American celebrity of the radical left. Read on.

Literature & Reviews

Radical Poetics and Secular Jewish Culture

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"What are the innovations and inventions of American Jewish poets over the past century?"
This is just one of the questions six writers and scholars pondered as part of
"Secular Jewish Culture/Radical Poetic Practice."

By Daniel Morris

Guide to the Land of Oz
 
An interview with Amos Oz's
translator, Nicholas de Lange.

By Benjamin Pollak

Jews and the Making of Modern History

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A review of David Shneer's Through Soviet Jewish Eyes: Photography, War, and the Holocaust.

By Sephora Markson Hartz

Singer Gets a Life
 
The author of Born to Kvetch asks how
Issac Bashevis Singer came to dominate
the American Jewish literary scene.

By Michael Wex

Introducing The Posen Library
 
...encompassing "an inclusive and pluralistic
definition of Jewish culture and civilization in
all of its rich diversity."

By James E. Young

 


Stage & Screen

The Jewish Shakespeare
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The tale of my great-grandfather,
playwright Jacob Gordin. 

By Beth Kaplan

Changing Cultural Landscapes 
in Russian & Israeli Cinema

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The evolving narrative in Israeli and Russian films of the 
Russian immigrant experience.

By Olga Gershenson

Lessons From the Prophets
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An interview with Tony Kushner.

By Jesse Tisch




Poetry

Yona Wallach: Profile of a Pioneering Hebrew Poet

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How did the life of a Catholic mystic become the
inspiration for poetry by a secular Jew?

By Ruth Kartun-Blum

Open, Closed, Open

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A modern Israeli poet ruminates on the
complexities of life, loss, and belief.

Poems by Yehuda Amichai
Translated by Chana Bloch and Chana Kronfeld


The power of women, the blending of cultures,
and the rebuke of tradition: Three Poems 
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A glimpse into the world of Mizrahi Jews,
the experiences of Jewish women of Arab lands,
and a secular Jewish identity.

By Ruth Knafo Setton


Yiddishkeit

Jewish-American Splendor

 

Harvey Pekar's final grumble.

By Sephora Markson Hartz

Passionate Pioneers

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The story of secular Yiddish education
in North America, 1910-1960.

By Fradle Pomerantz Freidenreich

Some Totally Radical Women
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The revolutionary use of Yiddish
in the early 20th century.

By Tony Michels

And the Award Goes to... Queer Yiddishkeit
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Something queer's going on
in the contemporary Yiddish scene.

By Kathleen Peratis


Pop Culture

What I Learned from My New Book
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A fresh look at Jews and
pop culture by a noted scholar.

By Paul Buhle

Jewish, Secular, and Popular
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Jazz-Age Jews not only consumed
pop culture, they helped create it.

By Ted Merwin

The Explosion of Jewish Culture in an Age of Mass Media

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Posen Library Volume X co-editor
explores how Jews make culture
and make it Jewish in various ways.
 

By Deborah Dash Moore