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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More than 60 years later, ‘West Side Story’ still matters — here’s why
Recently I went to a Seattle cineplex to see the new “West Side Story” film. But my dance with the show didn’t start there. It all began in 1959. I was an artsy nine-year old girl living in suburban Detroit, and one of my favorite things was my modern dance class. It met every Saturday…
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Last chance to see the Rolling Stones — a dispatch from the alte-kocker-rocker circuit
The cold orange dawn on Nov. 20 found me and my old poet friend Lee crammed into the back row of a plane from New York to Austin, Texas, bound for the Rolling Stones’ show that night. It would be the first time I’d ever seen them, 56 years after the fuzz-guitar riff of “Satisfaction”…
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How Jewish exiles from Vienna remade Hollywood in their image
When the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures opened earlier this year, it faced criticism for neglecting the foundational role American Jewish immigrants played in the movie industry. Its recent symposium and screening series, “Vienna in Hollywood,” planned long in advance of the opening, helped set the record straight. It highlighted the contributions of the European…
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The original ‘West Side Story’ was Jewish — would it have been a better musical?
It starts in an alley. An angsty Italian gang creeps onstage in a “stylized prologue showing the restlessness of the youths.” It’s New York City in the 1950s, and, as the plot progresses, warring ethnic groups articulate their frustrations via song and dance. Children die preventable deaths; everyone sings; the audience thinks soberly about prejudice…
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Why we have ‘Columbo’ to thank for Steven Spielberg
Editor’s Note: The director Steven Spielberg turns 75 on Dec. 18. To mark that momentous occasion, the Forward is running a series of essays reassessing his films. Read more of our “Spielberg at 75” series here. When Steven Spielberg was just 22, he dropped out of college and inked a multi-year contract to direct television…
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How one Jewish mother became the matriarch of modern comedy
Jews have been at the forefront of American comedy since its inception. Folks like Eugene Levy, Harold Ramis, Mike Nichols and Elaine May helped to grow theatrical improvisation — or improv comedy — into the worldwide phenomenon it is today. But, until now, little had been shared about the woman who started it all, Viola…
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How Adolf Eichmann murdered Superman — and was sentenced to death for his crimes
Sixty years ago, on Dec. 15, 1961, Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann was sentenced to death, following one of the most publicized trials in history. Improbably, it became the basis of a Superman comic book. A chief architect of the Holocaust, Eichmann oversaw the Jews’ deportation to the extermination camps. After the war, he fled…
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6 decades of Bob Dylan’s art on exhibit in Miami
Bob Dylan may be famous for songs like “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “Like a Rolling Stone” — but the Nobel laureate has never been content to just write, sing and play his guitar. In addition to selling whiskey, making movies and once even starring in a Victoria’s Secret commercial, the ever-shapeshifting artist has also…
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140 Tony nominations later, this Jewish impresario is still energizing Broadway
Theatrical producer Emanuel Azenberg likes to tell this story about the time, more than 30 years ago, when “Jerome Robbins’s Broadway” was in rehearsal. The show, which Azenberg was co-producing, was a compendium of brilliant musical numbers from the master choreographer’s Broadway career, but Robbins — born Jerome Rabinowitz — didn’t like the title. So…
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Six ways to celebrate the choreography in the new ‘West Side Story’
In many musicals, the dance is the icing on the cake — a sweet, sometimes saccharine flourish on top of an already constructed treat. But the “West Side Story” recipe is different. In the 1957 musical conceived, directed, and co-choreographed by Jerome Robbins, and the 1961 film adaptation, also choreographed and directed (in part) by…
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How Jewish is Hallmark’s ‘Eight Gifts of Hanukkah’?
I have a confession to make: I just enjoyed a Hallmark Channel Christmas movie. Or, all right; I’ll qualify that: It was “Eight Gifts of Hanukkah” — the one outlier in Hallmark’s “Countdown to Christmas” series (re-airing Dec. 12, 10 a.m. Eastern). And one reason I liked it is I view the channel in a…
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