This is the Forward’s coverage of Jewish culture where you’ll learn about the latest (and sometimes earliest) in Jewish art, music (including of course Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen), film, theater, books as well as the secret Jewish history of…
Culture
-
Israeli Film: All Grown Up and Leaving Home
With Israel’s 60th anniversary as its theme, the 23rd annual Israel Film Festival is an opportunity to reflect on life in a country that is ever shadowed by its military and political contexts. Opening in New York on October 29, and running till November 13 at the Clearview Cinemas, the event presents more than 30…
-
Poets of the Desert and the Sea
The Bad Wife Handbook By Rachel Zucker Wesleyan University Press, 114 pages, $22.95. Practice By Dan Bellm Sixteen Rivers Press, 80 pages, $15. Reviewing books in tandem has a lot to do with timing. Sometimes, two volumes appear with almost identical themes — a natural pairing. Other times, certain books suggest an immediate contrast, again…
-
A New Take on ‘Old Days’
Retirees like to go to the movies, but you wouldn’t know it from the offerings at the local Cineplex. Hollywood continues to aim hits like “The Dark Knight” and “Iron Man” at the desirable 15 to 35 age group, without giving much thought to mature audiences. While older moviegoers still may enjoy an action flick…
The Latest
-
When Jews Go Bad
The Jews of Sing Sing: Gotham Gangsters and Gonuvim By Ron Arons Barricade Books, 350 pages, $22.95. Sometimes it’s the little, everyday things that help you understand the big picture. You want to know what life was like as a Jewish gangster in 20th-century America? Ron Arons’s disjointed yet informative book, “The Jews of Sing…
-
A Toast a Tish and a Tu B’Shvat
Now that elections have been held in America, we have them to look forward to in Israel. They will take place February 10, despite the attempt of Knesset member Ya’akov Litzman, the parliamentary head of the ultra-Orthodox Agudat Yisra’el party, to postpone them. Why? Because this year, the 10th of February comes out on the…
-
November 14, 2008
100 Years Ago in the Forward In response to a query about the religious views of president-in-waiting William Howard Taft, Theodore Roosevelt, the outgoing president, has declared that a president’s religious orientation should not play a role in his ability to perform his duties. The query noted that Taft is a Unitarian and alleged that…
-
The Goldblum Variations: Star Turn Charts a Troubled Survivor’s Journey From Hell to Health
Nearly 15 years after the release of “Schindler’s List” the Holocaust continues to figure prominently as a subject for the movies. The latest one, which had its official premiere at the recent Toronto International Film Festival, after a sneak peek at the prestigious Telluride film festival, is “Adam Resurrected.” The film, a drama set in…
-
When Pushke Came To Shove
Let’s give credit where credit is due. American Jews happen to be an unusually inventive lot, especially when it comes to thinking up new forms of charitable giving. From the Kol Nidre appeal to UJA’s Super Sunday and from bingo nights at the local temple to online auctions, they have managed to redefine and contemporize…
-
Hiding from Helsinki: An Action Thriller About a Writer of Thrillers
Captives by Todd Hasak-Lowy New York, Spiegel & Grau, 381pp, $24.95 Daniel Bloom, the protagonist of Todd Hasak-Lowy’s first novel, “Captives,” is a screenwriter who helps create specimens of an enjoyable, but frustrating genre of movie: the big-budget somewhat-better-than-average action thriller. Exhibit A, for Bloom: His most ambitious screenplay to date — also called “Captives”…
-
Seeking Pizzazz in the Talmud
Mrs. C. Fletcher wastes no words. She writes, in an e-mail entitled “Pizzazz”: “My husband mentioned a passage from the Talmud, now forgotten, that included a similar word with a similar meaning. And dictionaries cite a (Jewish?) fashion designer of the 1930s as its inventor. What do you say?”I say, firstly, that if Mr. Fletcher…
-
November 7, 2008
100 Years Ago in the foward In the wake of the horrific murder-suicide of wealthy Jewish banker Julius Nelson White and his mother, questions have arisen as to who will take possession of White’s half-million dollar estate. Will it be his Christian widow or his family? The exact reason that White stabbed his mother to…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
Culture Inside the ancient Christian theology driving modern antisemitism
- 2
News Jews paused Indiana’s abortion ban — by turning a religious freedom law against the evangelical right
- 3
Opinion The moral degradation of Israel’s far right is even worse than you think
- 4
Culture In 1989, Harold Pinter and Jerry Schatzberg made the perfect Holocaust movie for 2026
In Case You Missed It
-
Culture Gene Shalit, a mensch with a personality as big as his mustache, turns 100
-
Looking Forward How a song about the food chain became a Seder mainstay
-
Fast Forward Connecticut Catholic school punishes students who targeted ‘Jew Canaan’ rivals on social media
-
Fast Forward Pro-Palestinian rally at Buchenwald memorial is shut down by German authorities
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
