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
-
A Texan Cantor Infuses Jewish Music With New Orleans Flavor
Austin, Texas, bills itself as the live-music capital of the world. But in a city usually known for its rock beat and country twang, Cantor Neil Blumofe has begun an exploration of Jewish music and themes played in a jazz idiom. His new CD, “Piety and Desire” — released on Valentine’s Day — looks at…
-
Jerry Lewis at 80
This may be hard to believe, but Jerry Lewis turns 80 on March 16. For more than 60 years, Lewis has loomed in our collective pop culture imagination as the perpetual “kid,” the 9-year-old “nudnik” to America: carrying on, driving us crazy, making us laugh — and wince. Whether you love or hate Lewis —…
-
The Shadow That Never Went Away
Yaacov Herzog: A Biography By Michael Bar-Zohar Gardners Books, 384 pages, $27.10 * * *| If the Oedipal complex didn’t exist, we might have to invent it to explain the frustrated, stunted career of Yaacov Herzog. A shadow hovered over him from the day he was born — his father, Isaac Halevi Herzog, was the…
The Latest
-
Skilled Craftsmen
Urim and Thummim. The ineffable name of God was inscribed on some unknown material and placed in the fold of the breastplate. — Soncino Chumash —So what we’re making is the breastplate, the ephod…. —What’s an ephod? —Like the linen apron you hang the breastplate over…? —Oh, right. —… the robe, tunic, mitre and a…
-
Sex, Lies and the German Occupation
The Mercy Room By Gilles Rozier Little, Brown and Company, 192 pages. $22.95. * * *| The scaffolding of Gilles Rozier’s taut, affecting novel, “The Mercy Room,” has all the makings of a Sunday evening television melodrama. The scene: a small town in France during the German Occupation. The hero and narrator: a French Christian…
-
Focus on HBO
Next week, one of television’s most acclaimed series returns for its final season. In its success, “The Sopranos” has joined a family of contemporary American icons, all presented by one channel: Home Box Office. In fact, when veteran journalist Michael Kinsley went looking for America’s Jane Austen —“Where in America is the essence of our…
-
What Makes Ari Run
Ari Gold, the smarmy 10-percenter who pulls the strings of HBO’s Hollywood send-up “Entourage,” has it all: degrees from Harvard and Michigan Law, a former-actress wife, a $3 million house in one of the hillier enclaves of West Los Angeles, a full head of hair and a conveniently malleable sense of ethics. He is the…
-
The Couch Becomes Him
If leaders are measured by how they treat their Jews, then Tony Soprano qualifies as a world-class statesman. Of course, “The Sopranos” features its share of corrupt Jews — ultra-Orthodox and secular — as well as several marginally antisemitic wiseguys. Yet Tony has evinced a decidedly philosemitic streak — one that might, in fact, explain…
-
A Jew and a Lawyer Are Sitting in a Bar…
Watching “The Wire,” HBO’s serial drama about the gritty underbelly of the Baltimore streets, one sometimes gets the impression of honest men and women trapped in a hopeless machine of corruption, violence and despair. Many of the show’s most likable characters are killed off, while those who remain have a world-weary look in their eyes….
-
Life Among the Goyim
Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that is edited by everyone who wants to make an entry in it, can be outrageously wrong, but it is often surprisingly reliable. If you look up Sacha Baron Cohen, the creator and star of “Da Ali G Show,” you will find him categorized under “English comedians” and “Jewish comedy.” Baron…
-
Curb Your Judaism
True, Larry David doesn’t much like whitefish. True, he makes fun of the Orthodox and — yes — he made far too public two dark, shameful secrets of Judaism: that we sell tickets for High Holy Day services and that Gina Gershon is one of us. But don’t be fooled. It’d be easy to dismiss…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
Opinion The Iran war ended terribly for the US, and even worse for Israel
- 2
Film & TV In ‘Disclosure Day,’ Steven Spielberg finds himself at odds with Jewish thought about aliens
- 3
Opinion Cultural boycotts of Israel just reached peak absurdity
- 4
Culture ‘My mayor Muslim, my bagel Jewish’ — the Knicks chant capturing New York’s soul
In Case You Missed It
-
Culture The manosphere says women owe their husbands sex — Judaism says the opposite
-
Fast Forward Georgia’s Jewish senator called his newly minted GOP opponent an antisemite. Why?
-
Fast Forward Alex Bores’ supporters disagree on Israel. They agree on him.
-
Fast Forward Organizers of London Israeli real estate fair apologize after West Bank properties surface despite denials