A.J. Goldmann is a writer based between Munich and Berlin. His articles about European and Jewish culture have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Atlantic, The New Republic, and The Guardian.
A.J. Goldmann
By A.J. Goldmann
-
Art Will Donald Trump Make Golems Great Again?
‘It is said that the Golem lives everywhere and in all times,” wrote the Polish-Jewish writer David Frishman in 1922. Is Donald Trump the Golem of the current age? That tantalizing question is posed at the beginning of the Berlin Jewish Museum’s exhibit about Judaism’s folkloristic man of clay, starkly titled “Golem,” the name stripped…
-
Culture Why We Mourn Leonard Cohen in the Era of Trump
Historians will probably discuss Leonard Cohen’s death alongside two very different developments, Trump victorious and Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize win. “Everybody Knows,” one of Cohen’s bleakest songs, has instantly become an anthem for the despair felt by much of the world in the wake of the election. Leonard Cohen was a weary-voiced troubadour to the…
-
Culture Why Isn’t Frederick Kiesler a Household Name?
A paradox lies at the core of Frederick Kiesler’s legacy. Over a career that spanned half a century, the protean and tireless architect, designer and theoretician actually built precious little. His most famous and, arguably, most radical design, the free-form pod-like “Endless House,” never yielded a satisfactory prototype, despite nearly 40 years of planning; few…
-
Culture The Jewish Museum in a Town With Only One Jew In It
From Berlin to Moscow; London to Vienna; Copenhagen, Denmark, to Budapest, Hungary, and, recently, Warsaw, Poland, the map of Europe is dotted with museums dedicated to the history and culture of Jewish communities past and present. Although the Jewish Museum in Prague dates back to 1906, the majority of Jewish museums now on a Jewish…
-
Culture No Redemption For Wagner’s ‘Parsifal’ in Bayreuth
If I needed to choose my favorite incongruous moment from Uwe Eric Laufenberg’s spectacularly bad production of “Parsifal,” which opened this year’s Bayreuth Festival, I would choose the shukling, or davening, Jews in tzitzit and yarmulkes, who appear in the third act chorus. Titurel, the ancient leader of the Knights of the Grail, has just…
-
Culture In the Case of Shylock V. Antonio, Judge Ginsburg Presides
Vengeful. Bloodthirsty. Merciless. Jewish. William Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice” is practically synonymous with Shylock, the moneylending Jew who demands a pound of flesh from his Christian nemesis Antonio (the actual merchant of the title). But Shakespeare’s romantic-comedy-meets-courtroom-drama it is also full of thorny legal issues. Was there ever a demand for payment prior to…
-
Culture Director William Friedkin Finds His Jewish Connection
As I prepare to interview William Friedkin, I keep thinking about an assignment I had in high school. A much-loved high school history teacher asked us to write a term paper analyzing a classic European film alongside its American remake. The pairing I chose was Henri-Georges Clouzot’s “Wages of Fear” (1953) and Friedkin’s “Sorcerer” (1977)….
-
Culture Why We’re in a Golden Age For Israeli Cinema — And Politics Has Nothing To Do With It
Hugging the port of Cannes on either side of the Grand Palais du Festival is Village International, a colony of national pavilions, each promoting their own homegrown fare. This year, for the very first time in the history of the festival, Israel set up its own pavilion, right alongside China’s, whose red flag waged vigorously…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
Fast Forward Why some Satmar Hasidic leaders endorsed Zohran Mamdani as mayor, stunning many Jewish voters
- 2
Sports It’s so cool that Sandy Koufax was there for that
- 3
Opinion I’m an Israeli who lives in New York. Here’s why I’m voting for Mamdani
- 4
News Mamdani opposes Zionism, but wants New York public schools to teach about it
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Amsterdam’s Royal Concert Hall cancels annual Hanukkah concert, citing singer’s IDF ties
-
Opinion Will Israel ever have another leader who truly wants peace?
-
Fast Forward Yad Vashem says it has identified 5 million Holocaust victims with help of AI
-
Fast Forward 2 of NYC’s 5 public pension funds are vulnerable to a mayor-backed Israel divestment push
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
