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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I have seen the future of America — in a pastrami sandwich in Queens
San Wei, which serves pastrami sandwiches along with churros and biang biang noodles, represents an immigrant's fulfillment of the American dream
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Cartoonist Liana Finck on rewriting Genesis, God as a woman and why Abraham feels like a Philip Roth character
In Liana Finck’s Book of Genesis, Lilith is the Serpent, Joseph wears a merman tail and God is a woman. The New Yorker cartoonist’s latest graphic novel, “Let There Be Light: The Real Story of Her Creation,” envisages the Almighty as a work in progress. She is lonely, so She creates people. In a moment…
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How Jewish is Moon Knight anyway? Depends whether you’re reading it or watching it on Disney.
Marvel’s newest superhero offering, the six-part “Moon Knight” miniseries on Disney+, stars Oscar Isaac, a big-name actor, as the fairly obscure comics character. On the face of it, it’s an opportunity for Isaac to define the role, like Wesley Snipes did with Blade and Robert Downey Jr. with Iron Man. But Moon Knight, as deep…
The Latest
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She typed up Schindler’s list — and, in so doing, showed how a secretary could become a hero
Mimi Reinhardt, who died April 8 at age 107, proved that administrative assistants can be powerful forces for good or evil, depending on their own personal qualities. As Austrian Jewish secretary to the German industrialist Oskar Schindler, she typed clean copies of the celebrated list of around 1200 Jews who were claimed as essential workers…
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At the Lower East Side Passover Parade, immigrants created new American identities
“While the Easter Parade on Sunday was a complete failure owing to the inclement weather, the Passover Parade on Saturday was a huge success.” So, in April, 1906, declared The Hebrew Standard, a New York Jewish periodical. The paper went on to describe the scene on Grand Street, home of the Parade, writing that it…
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Why it matters whether we describe Putin’s appalling crimes against humanity ‘genocide’
The horrors produced by Russian soldiers in Bucha and Borodyanka have spurred countless commentaries on two concepts: crimes against humanity and the crime of genocide. Commentators rightly note that these notions differ not on the heinous nature of certain acts, but on how they should be defined. But often missing from these discussions is the…
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How Amy Schumer’s new show makes Judaism look bad
What does it mean to be a Jewish TV show? Sometimes the answer is obvious. Shows like “Shtisel” and “Unorthodox” are set in deeply Jewish communities; “Valley of Tears” and “Our Boys” take on major events from Jewish history. Then there are shows like “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” which seems to scream “THIS IS A…
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On her first Netflix special, a Jewish comedian’s breathless display of timing, charisma and self-regard
At the end of the new Catherine Cohen Netflix special I was so breathless I wasn’t quite sure what I’d seen. It’s not that Cohen isn’t funny — she is — but the experience of an hour of “The Twist? She’s Gorgeous” is both exhilarating and exhausting. As Cohen might say, with a flick of…
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Playing Yentl’s father, Billy Wilder’s gangster and Papa Mousekewitz, he was a Jewish actor of unparalleled resourcefulness
When Barbra Streisand sang the Oscar-nominated song “Papa, Can You Hear Me?” in her film “Yentl,” she was singing it to Nehemiah Persoff’s character, Rebbe Mendel. Persoff, who died April 5 at age 102, also starred as Papa Mousekewitz in the “American Tail” movie series. Yet Persoff’s varied work on stage, film, and TV proved…
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How one trailblazing rabbi is fighting racism in the Reconstructionist movement
Like other Jewish institutions, the Reconstructionist movement made a commitment to racial justice in 2020 as part of its stated mission to blend a strong commitment to Jewish tradition with the search for contemporary meaning. Unlike some others, its leaders vowed to make it more than just lip service. That year, their Tikkun Olam Commission…
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Everything you need to know (which isn’t all that much) about the most lavish Jewish wedding of the year
It’s a beautiful thing when two young Jewish people in love join their lives under the chuppah. And for young Brooklyn Beckham and Nicola Peltz we wish only the best. A model and photographer, Beckham, 23, is still best known as the son of Victoria “Posh Spice” Beckham and soccer player, model and MLS franchise-owner,…
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Sports ‘March Madness for Jews’: Why the Sarachek tournament is such a big Orthodox deal
For all the ways the sport unifies the Orthodox world, there is nothing like basketball to draw out its differences.
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