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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Is ‘Charm Circle’ a Jewish ‘Grey Gardens,’ or a failed therapy session?
The first thing I did after finishing “Charm Circle” was clean my room. Named for a patch of Kew Garden Hills in Queens, NY, where red brick semidetached homes form a pseudo suburb, the documentary by Nira Burstein is as intimate — and dirty — as filmmaking gets. Burstein follows her parents, Uri and Raya,…
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Mizrahi documentary is personal and political homage to hope and resistance
Michale Boganim grew up hearing her father’s stories of migrating from Morocco to Israel, only to be blindsided by blatant discrimination in the Promised Land. One of many who journeyed from North Africa, the Middle East, and parts of the Caucasus to Israel in search of brotherhood and opportunity, Charlie Boganim responded by becoming a…
The Latest
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Hey Starbucks — where are the Hanukkah seasonal lattes?
For many people, it’s not truly fall until Starbucks launches the Pumpkin Spice Latte. The same goes for Christmas season; when the coffee chain’s iconic red, white and green Christmas cups, filled with seasonal drinks like peppermint, chestnut praline or gingerbread lattes, become available — as they did last week — you know it’s time…
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Meet the greatest Jewish sportscasters of all time
On July 2, 1921, one hundred years ago, 100,000 fans elbowed their way into Boyle’s Thirty Acres in Jersey City, New Jersey to see the highly anticipated heavyweight championship fight between Jack Dempsey and Georges Carpentier. Dempsey retained the title with a fourth-round knockout of the Frenchman. The Dempsey-Carpentier fight marked the first time fans…
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The Jewish character on ‘Succession’ is reading Dostoevsky — what should we read into that?
Never place a loaded pistol onstage in the first act of a play, if it is not going to go off in a later act, Anton Chekhov famously declared. But what about placing a loaded book in a character’s hand in a television series if it is not going to go off by season’s end?…
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On his 121st birthday, four reasons to love Aaron Copland
On Aaron Copland’s birthday, I find myself wanting to listen to the opening minute of the composer’s sonata for violin and piano on a loop. Not that I don’t love the rest of the work, but the opening encapsulates just what I love about the best of his music: a simplicity and sincerity that carries…
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With the unveiling of a Jewish veteran’s headstone, another rare act of bravery
Last Sunday, I attended an extraordinary Zoom ceremony in Manchester, England, that marked the placement of a Star of David headstone in remembrance of a Jewish WWII veteran, Kurt Goldschlager, who had been buried under a cross. The military ceremony was led by Rabbi David Lewis and included a range of Jewish veterans in full…
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Paul Rudd is the Sexiest Man Alive. Take that, former winner Mel Gibson.
It’s a banner day for embarrassing Jewish dads everywhere. Paul Rudd, the eternally young and irrepressibly charming star of “Ant-Man” is People’s Sexiest Man Alive. As someone who has hosted a Rudd-O-Ween party (picture below), has intimate knowledge of Rudd’s contributions to the oeuvre of Tim and Eric and keeps a private ranking of the…
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‘The Eternals’ is Marvel’s most Jewish story — that may be the most interesting thing about it
The heroes of “Eternals,” Marvel Studio’s latest movie, are a band of immortals (genetically altered humans in the comics, something else in the film) sworn to protect humanity against the mutant Deviants. They answer to the Celestials, colossal space gods that create and tamper with life throughout the cosmos. It’s based on a comic created…
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Film & TV How Dean Stockwell fought antisemitism and inspired Jewish moviegoers
Dean Stockwell, the Hollywood actor who died on Nov. 7 at age 85, is best remembered for appearances in such films as “Dune,” “Blue Velvet,” and “Married to the Mob,” in addition to the TV series “Quantum Leap” and “Battlestar Galactica.” Yet starting as a child actor at the beginning of his lengthy career, Stockwell…
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Art In a Jewish Bestiary, lions, leviathans and bears — oh my!
Did you know frogs are scholars of Torah, the Leviathan was God’s favorite pet and gazelles were the carrier pigeons of ancient Judea? From the time Adam named the animals, the Jewish imagination has been preoccupied with creatures of the sea and creeping things of the land, referring to them in proverbs and deploying them…
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