Michael Goldfarb
By Michael Goldfarb
-
Culture How Jackie Mason remade the world of Jewish stand-up comedy
In the middle of the last century, American stand-up comedy became a subsidiary of the Jewish cultural-industrial complex. But the secret of its extraordinary success was that while its practitioners were obviously Jewish, their material was never too overtly Jewish. Except for Jackie Mason. The great names of the stand-up scene — Joan Rivers, Woody…
-
Opinion The Secret Friendship Behind Israel’s Support Of Kurdish Independence
“We have no friends but the mountains,” is an old Kurdish saying. No friends but the mountains — and Israel — is the reality. There is a deep affinity between Israel and the Kurds. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was alone among world leaders when he endorsed Kurds preparing to vote in an independence referendum….
-
Culture The Gospel According to British-Jewish Author Naomi Alderman
● The Liars’ Gospel By Naomi Alderman Little, Brown and Company, 320 pages, $25.99 It is odd that in a media-saturated time when people seem unable to remember important events that happened last week, much less the decades-long story of how we got into the economic and political mess we’re in, historical storytelling flourishes. Whether…
-
News A Pioneering Polymath Who Is Open About His Faith
Robert Winston is a man of many titles: Baron Winston of Hammersmith, ennobled because of his status as the world’s leading researcher in in vitro fertilization treatments; Professor Robert Winston, with a chair in science and society at London’s Imperial College; Chancellor Robert Winston of Sheffield Hallam University, and plain old Robert Winston, presenter of…
-
News Debate Over Jewish Guidelines for Organ Donation Crosses the Atlantic
The controversy over what is dead according to Jewish law is no longer an intramural question among Orthodox rabbis on either side of the Atlantic. In Britain it is now being played out in public. As in the United States, the emotional question of organ donation is the battlefield. The most recent round of arguments…
-
Culture Howard Jacobson Wins Literary Prize
Howard Jacobson’s “The Finkler Question” has won this year’s Man Booker Prize. In Britain, where they still read lots of books, they take their literary prizes seriously, and the Booker is the Oscar of prizes. It means more than the Pulitzer, the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award rolled into one. The prize money…
Most Popular
- 1
Fast Forward Coldplay welcomed Israeli fans onstage ‘as equal humans.’ Why are some Jewish people mad?
- 2
Fast Forward Trump lawyer who praised ‘Mein Kampf’ is now accusing Harvard of antisemitism, report says
- 3
Opinion In the rush to vilify Israel, genocide scholars ignored the truth
- 4
Sports Forget being caught on camera at a Coldplay concert — I was caught on Shabbat at Yankee Stadium
In Case You Missed It
-
Opinion Israel’s strike in Qatar: An audacious bid for victory, or just another foolhardy provocation?
-
Fast Forward University of Oregon cuts spare Judaic studies faculty who had raised alarm
-
Fast Forward As more Jews acquire guns, a Jewish security group urges stronger regulations for synagogues
-
Yiddish די ייִדישע גאַסנשילד פֿונעם פּאַריזער „פּלעצל“ איז צוגעגנבֿעט געוואָרןYiddish street sign for the Pletzel, the Yiddish quarter of Paris, is stolen
דער אינצידענט איז פֿאָרגעקומען בעת אַ ממשותדיקן וווּקס פֿון אַנטיסעמיטיזם אין פֿראַנקרײַך
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism