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
-
Roman Holidays
One thing to know about Alain Elkann, the much-discussed French-Italian-Jewish author, journalist, and man of Roman society, is that a lot of the talk is talk about his face. Think of a youthful, smoldering Richard Gere, then think one better. It is a face impossible to ignore, and it is not the face he has…
-
Two Albums Offer Gems of Gypsy Melodies
Before the advent of the European Union and its open borders, long before Germany had been invaded by the Turks and France by the North Africans, two groups vied for the distinction of being the most despised people in Europe: Gypsies and Jews. More often than not, the Gypsies — or Roma, as they prefer…
-
The Son Also Rises
In the Perlman family, musical talent is a family affair. Most people are familiar with Itzhak Perlman, the internationally renowned violin virtuoso. But his wife, Toby, is also an accomplished violinist. The couple’s daughter Navah is a concert pianist who tours worldwide both with her trio and as a soloist, and daughter Ariella plays the…
The Latest
-
Untranslatable Sentiments
Paul Celan: Selections Edited by Pierre Joris University of California Press, 230 pages, $17.95. * * *| It might seem ironic that the most important German poet of the second half of the 20th century was a Romanian Jew who lived most of his adult life in Paris. But it is not. Paul Celan, born…
-
July 22, 2005
100 YEARS AGO IN THE FORWARD A riot occurred at the opening ceremony for a new synagogue in St. Louis. After the doors of Hevrat Sfarad opened to let in those who had gathered for the ceremony, the new synagogue filled up quickly and hundreds of people who had been waiting were unable to get…
-
Standing Again With Lilith; The Long and Winding Roads of Jewish Feminism
These days, everyone is post-something: postmodern, post-Zionist — and, in many quarters, post-feminist. Like other “revolutionary” ideologies, feminism has come to mean different — indeed, diametrically opposed — things to different people. To some, it is the simple belief that women should be treated as equal to men: for example, that they should not be…
-
July 15, 2005
100 YEARS AGO • Early in the morning, Morris Klein came into the Forward offices with his 8-year-old daughter. “Please, take my child,” he said. Klein, who arrived in New York recently from St. Louis, is a poor laborer whose wife died this past Passover, leaving him to care for their four children. The two…
-
Fields, Green Again
Although for many years it has appeared that the work of Austrian-born filmmaker Edgar G. Ulmer (1904-1972) was destined to fall into oblivion — in one of the earliest accounts of his career, from the 1970s, film scholar John Belton pronounced Ulmer “a totally unknown or, at best, an obscure figure in film history” —…
-
A Famed Bronx Boy Looks Back
The Amorous Busboy of Decatur Avenue: A Child of the Fifties Looks Back By Robert Klein Touchstone/Simon and Schuster, * * *| ‘I was raised on chicken soup,” comedian Robert Klein wails in one of his signature song parodies, “Middle-Class Educated Blues.” In his startlingly candid memoir, Klein reveals other, more carnal sources of nourishment…
-
Klezmer via Kingston
The postcard-sized calendars strewn about the world music venue Satalla, on West 26th Street in New York City, proclaimed the band Klezska to be purveyors of “klezmer music,” which is a lot like calling turducken “stuffed turkey.” Neither description is entirely misleading. But like most labels, they hardly tell the whole story. Founded and led…
-
An Unsung Master Offers Sorrow (and Yuks)
Almonds to Zhoof: Collected Stories By Richard Stern TriQuarterly Books/Northwestern University Press, 611 pages, $29.95. By Peter Orner * * *| STERN: A new collection includes 49 short stories. In a review of Bernard Malamud’s stories, Richard Stern once called Malamud “the poet of the American depression.” Call Stern the bard of postwar American failure….
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
Exclusive Mahmoud Khalil wants to reassure you
- 2
Culture In 1989, Harold Pinter and Jerry Schatzberg made the perfect Holocaust movie for 2026
- 3
Culture 70 years ago, this Jewish choreographer predicted our epidemic of loneliness and isolation
- 4
Opinion Trump is backed into a corner on Iran. Get ready for him to start blaming Jews
In Case You Missed It
-
Opinion Hungary is poised to topple an authoritarian leader. American Jews have something to learn
-
Fast Forward 42 Jewish authors slam Jewish Book Council for ‘bias toward centering Israeli and Zionist voices’
-
Fast Forward Temple Israel rabbi criticizes Michigan Senate candidate for ‘offensive’ remarks about attack
-
Culture The Pentagon fears the Vatican’s authority in a battle over Christianity’s power
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
