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
-
That time Yiddishists met extraterrestrials a short while ago in a galaxy not far away
It was a normal summer internship at the Yiddish Book Center ... until the Jedi invaded our turf
-
Going Gaga For Batsheva in America
Since its first tour of the United States in 1970, Israel’s Batsheva Dance Company has won over American crowds and critics alike with its energetic approach to dance. At the time, it was, perhaps, a novelty: an Israeli group performing primarily American repertory with unbridled verve and vigor. But in the past 18 years, the…
-
The Mightiest Stories Ever Told
On or about March 13, 1929, readers of The New York Times were informed that Noah’s Ark had taken Broadway by storm. Those who had not yet had their morning coffee must have taken the news quite literally, especially since it was accompanied by a two-page spread that featured an enormous boat washed up amid…
The Latest
-
It’s a Purim World Out There
Purim has always been a weightier holiday than it seems — precisely because it is the lightest. Unbearably light, to paraphrase Kundera: Purim’s message is that there is no anchor, that all is random, that carnival is real and there is nothing you can do about it. Or, to paraphrase the late and beloved Rabbi…
-
Miklós Radnóti: Bearer of Poetic Witness
Miklós Radnóti (1909–1944) was arguably the greatest poet of the Holocaust. He stands out among the other great figures of the Holocaust literature of his generation because he dedicated his life — his talent, discipline, loves and learning, and even his fate in the Holocaust — to the craft of writing poetry. Unlike many others,…
-
Furious Responsibilities
The Kindly Ones By Jonathan Littell, translated from the French by Charlotte Mandell *HarperCollins, 992 pages, $29.99. * *‘But you should be able to admit to yourselves that you might also have done what I did….. If you were born in a country or at a time not only when nobody comes to kill your…
-
Chosen, Us?
The Jews as a Chosen People By S. Leyla Gurkan Routledge, 246 pages, $140.00. The Chosen: The History of an Idea, the Anatomy of an Obsession By Avi Beker Palgrave Macmillan, 256 pages, $35.00. Who Are the Real Chosen People? By Reuven Firestone Skylight Paths Publishing, 158 pages, $21.99. Here’s an obvious statement: The doctrine…
-
‘The Beginning’
One of the great Russian writers of the 20th century, Isaac Babel was born in Odessa to middle-class Jewish parents in 1894. In his classic “Red Cavalry,” he writes about how he rode with Cossacks in their Polish campaign; and in his comic Odessa stories, he depicts the Damon Runyon-like Jewish gangsters of Odessa’s Moldavanka…
-
Rhyming Life and Fiction
Rhyming Life & Death By Amos Oz, translated by Nicholas de Lange *Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 128 pages, $23.00. * Readers who last encountered Amos Oz in “A Tale of Love and Darkness,” his elegiac and often somber memoir, may be taken aback by the literary sleight of hand he performs in this highly entertaining short…
-
Faith in a Barren Land
The Believers By Zoë Heller HarperCollins, 352 pages, $25.99. In her new novel, the British-born and, for the past 20 years, New York-based novelist and cultural critic Zoë Heller (her last novel, “Notes on a Scandal” (2003 was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize in England and made into a popular film starring Judi Dench…
-
Muffled Singer
Singer By Ira Sher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 336 pages, $25.00. If the charge of fiction is to tell a story that reveals the mysteries of human behavior, Ira Sher is writing for all the right reasons. His second novel, “Singer,” is a book damp with the sadness and confusion of middle-aged men waking up to…
-
Writer in Time
There is still hope for the novel. In a climate increasingly hostile to fiction that does not adhere to the conservative parameters set by the publishing industry, some writers continue to work according to their own lights. Gabriel Josipovici is remarkable for producing novels that belong to the modern European tradition of Kafka and Proust,…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
Culture I ranked the NYC mayoral candidates exclusively based on their bagel orders
- 2
News How Jewish can you be in a Boca country club? Wrapping tefillin got a family suspended, lawsuit says
- 3
Opinion Mike Huckabee’s stunning, terrifying new gift to the Israeli right
- 4
Opinion Greta Thunberg’s Gaza flotilla was never going to help Palestinians
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward At an Iranian Jewish hangout, retirees wonder if regime change is in the cards
-
News The 3 ways American Jews are responding to Israel’s attacks on Iran
-
Fast Forward For Israelis under Iranian barrage, deadly nights alternate with days brimming with life
-
Fast Forward Their counselors stuck in Israel, US Jewish camps are putting out ‘Help Wanted’ signs
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
