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
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When Harpo spoke — to save a relative from World War II Europe
In March of 1941, a 72-year-old German Jewish widow named Helene Schickler was waiting to join her family in the U.S. She was then living in a convent in Naples with other refugees, and the nuns hosting them were running out of food. She was losing weight, strength and hope. A doctor came to examine…
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‘Hatzaad Harishon’ broke barriers – until race, identity questions proved too much
This article is an edited excerpt from from Janice W. Fernheimer’s book, “Stepping Into Zion: Hatzaad Harishon, Black Jews, and the Remaking of Jewish Identity,” (University of Alabama Press 2014). For the first years of its short existence, Hatzaad Harishon successfully created opportunities for Blacks who identified as Jews but who may not have been…
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Could Israelites be brought into mainstream Judaism? 50 years ago, one effort did just that
Can mainstream, largely white, Jewish organizations and individual Jews reach out to Black Israelite groups? And should they, even if many view the historically Black congregations as not “real Jews”? And if they’re not real Jews, is it time to bring them into the fold? Before attempting to answer those questions, know that an effort…
The Latest
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On Netflix, a notorious Israeli swindler finally gets his comeuppance
Watching Netflix’s “The Tinder Swindler,” about an accomplished Israeli conman and the victims who exposed him, I couldn’t stop thinking of TikTok’s most-maligned and unremarkable f-boy, West Elm Caleb. On paper, the titular swindler, a felon named Shimon Hayut, and W.E.C, a tall, mustachioed New York furniture designer who is bad at online dating, seem…
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A lifelong lover of provocation, she survived Auschwitz and sought to make the Holocaust visible
Charlotte Delbo was a non-Jewish French writer who was active in the anti-Nazi Resistance movement during World War II, which led to her being imprisoned in Auschwitz extermination camp. Her books and plays about surviving that experience, including “Auschwitz and After”; “Convoy to Auschwitz”; and “None of Us Will Return” have won admiring readers. A…
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She died of cystic fibrosis. A new film tells her story — in her own words
After Mallory Smith died in 2017, her mom finally got a chance to look at her diary. Smith had just turned 25 when she died from complications of cystic fibrosis. For 10 years she’d documented her life and thoughts on her computer and devices. When she gave her mother, Diane Shader Smith, the password, there…
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At the Olympic hockey games, a bounty of Jewish players
Looking over the U.S. men’s Olympic hockey rosters, one certainly sees some familiar hockey names — Ferraro, McTavish, Staal, Winnik and Desharnais, for example — but what must be a hockey first is that Team Canada will ice three players with ties to the Jewish faith: Josh Ho-Sang, Jason Demers and Devon Levi. Levi’s affiliation…
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With antisemitism rising, a Jewish family wonders — is it safe to be Jewish in France (or America)?
'Prayer for the French Republic' asks tough questions, but provides no easy answers
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He was ‘America’s greatest wit’ — so why doesn’t anyone remember this ace Jewish comedy writer?
You know you’ve been around awhile when you can claim to have co-written a script with a guy born in the 19th century. Well, I have been and I did. The show was “Andy Williams Presents” and the writer’s name was Goodman Ace. Born in 1899, just under the wire, a year that also gave…
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100 years later, is this flawed man really ‘the most outstanding Jew in modern literature?’
Frank O'Connor once asserted that James Joyce was 'the greatest Jew of all'
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Music The 150 greatest Jewish pop songs of all time
Inspired in part by all the Jewish artists on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Songs, the Forward decided it was time to rank the best Jewish pop songs of all time. You can find the whole list and accompanying essays here. After Rolling Stone magazine published its list of the 500 Greatest Albums…
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