Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of Jewish culture. Here, you’ll learn about the latest (and sometimes earliest) in Jewish art, music, film, theater, books as well as the secret Jewish history of everything and everyone from The Rolling Stones to…
Culture
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New York Voices 99 years ago, she was born on the Lower East Side (and she still remembers everything)
I’m not positive why I asked my Aunt Paula what she thought about Don Rickles and Nikita Khrushchev. I guess because Rickles and Khrushchev looked alike. To backtrack (easy to do when an article is three sentences in), I’d asked my auntie, who just turned 99, permission to publish a story of her (mostly) 20th-century…
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Why there is no holiday more tragic than Lag B’Omer for my family
Lag B’Omer is traditionally a happy festival when Jews celebrate with bonfires and picnics, but I have always known it as the day when most of my mother’s family was murdered. My mother, Lunia Athalie Backenroth Gartner Weiss, came from the Gartner family, which was well-known for philanthropy. The Gartners built the theater in Stryj,…
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Alison Leiby wants you to laugh at her abortion. Will it actually help?
One thing nearly all birth control ads have in common are the pristine landscapes in which they take place. There’s the girly swimming pools of Nuvaring, the stylish, vagina-themed boudoir of Phexxi, the jewel-toned backdrops of Annovera. These elaborately constructed settings could not be less reflective of the actual experience of using birth control, which…
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Music The secret Jewish history of The Who
Editor’s Note: In honor of Pete Townshend’s 77th birthday, we revisit his band’s Jewish history that we first looked into in 2015. The Who, the English rock group, is in the midst of yet another tour, one that they say may be their last — a claim they have been making since at least 1982….
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New York Voices Where have all the hanging ducks gone?
I’ve always thought there is nothing better than eating Chinese food in China. But if you can’t get there, and you want superb Chinese cuisine, there’s always Flushing, Queens, New York. Within a mile radius of its center you can find restaurants replicating all of the exciting dishes I ever tasted in China. The streets…
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If you could save your family or the rest of the world, which would you choose?
“I write about strong women, and women breaking barriers — strong Jewish women who are fighting for new positions in the world, who are fighting to change the world,” Rachel Barenbaum told me. Barenbaum is the author of the novels “A Bend in the Stars” and the recently published “Atomic Anna,” “I love talking about…
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Why Ed Koch’s response to AIDS was very political and not very Jewish
A decorous, unjudgmental New York Times article appeared May 7 about the sexuality of the late American Jewish politician Ed Koch. Based on interviews with Koch friends and sympathizers, the article described how the onetime New York mayor publicly denied his own homosexuality, while admitting it to intimates, a fact that is long familiar to…
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Four reasons why a racist and antisemitic theory has become so dangerous — and why we need to stop it
Let’s talk about “The Great White Replacement Theory.” If you would rather not, or if you believe it’s too ridiculous a lie to confront, please consider just one simple and undeniable fact documented by new polling — how popular it is in America. For the uninitiated, “The White Replacement Theory” claims that there is a…
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If you think racism and violence aren’t part of America’s soul and character, you don’t know your history
A few hours after he learned about yesterday’s mass shooting in Buffalo, President Joe Biden urged us to “address the hate that remains a stain in the soul of the country.” This was not the first time the president diagnosed our nation’s soul in the wake of such violence. Following last year’s mass shooting in…
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Composer Fanny Hensel: The less famous, equally talented Mendelssohn?
Putting my own and others’ sincere bicentenary panegyrics aside, Felix Mendelssohn wrote not just admittedly splendid works, but also sugary Victorian church schmaltz. More than simply belonging to an assimilated German Jewish family which baptized its children, Felix composed pieces which appear to stodgily embrace his newfound Christian identity, although some scholars continue to disagree…
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‘Hacks’ returns, but its confident rhythm does not
Hannah Einbinder is a firecracker — and not just because she’s a redhead. Bursting onto the scene with HBO’s “Hacks” last year, she was immediately nominated for an Emmy and a Golden Globe for her first major foray into acting. The snappy, multigenerational comedy pitted Einbinder’s millennial, washed-up Ava against Jean Smart who played an…
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New York Voices In a new exhibit on Eldridge Street, an artist dreams of kosher hot dogs
In a new exhibit at the Museum at Eldridge Street, “Steve Marcus: Top Dog of Kosher Pop Art,” the artist shows off a series of new drawings which revel in the history of the kosher hot dog, a handheld treat with deep roots in Brooklyn and the Lower East Side. You may chuckle at the…
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News ‘Whose religious freedom?’: Scenes from a Jewish rally for abortion rights
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Fast Forward Mayor Adams to meet with 55 women rabbis who are concerned he’s only hearing from Orthodox Jews
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Culture Alison Leiby wants you to laugh at her abortion. Will it actually help?
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