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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Books
Her Bronx Jewish characters ‘hate history’ — and are finally back on bookshelves
Around two years ago, Johanna Kaplan learned, out of the blue, that HarperCollins was interested in reissuing a short story collection she had originally published all the way back in 1975. “It’s a marvelous, marvelous, amazing thing to be happening to me at this age,” said Kaplan, 79. When the collection debuted, under the title…
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Israeli goldfish can drive cars — but they’re not quite ready for the carpool lane
In Israeli author Etgar Keret’s short story collection “Fly Already,” a goldfish exits his bowl, puts on a pair of slippers and tunes into CNN. Of course it’s fanciful, but in real-life Israel, goldfish are already learning to drive – sort of. A team of researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev have trained fish…
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Jason Brown may have been sixth in the Olympics but he’s first in my heart
I’ve never competed in figure skating; at this point, I can probably barely stand up on a pair of skates. But my mother — who also cannot skate — is such an avid consumer of figure skating that I grew up watching every competition, and as a result, I can name the jumps, the spins,…
The Latest
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Woody Allen’s latest is playing in a New York theater — but is anybody going to see it? Anybody?
On Tuesday I opted to spend a gorgeous afternoon in New York City going to a movie. The movie was “Rifkin’s Festival,” Woody Allen’s latest and a film that presently has a 42% on Rotten Tomatoes with a 50% audience score. Given this tepid reception, I wondered who was going to see Allen’s film, which…
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Despite 70 years as a monarch, Queen Elizabeth has had precious little time for the Jews
In this Platinum Jubilee year, should we care that the monarch has betrayed little interest in Jewish history or culture?
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Soup Nazis? Marjorie Taylor Greene calls out Pelosi’s ‘gazpacho police’ in a gaffe best served cold
It’s becoming clearer by the day that Marjorie Taylor Greene learned nothing from her obligatory visit to the U.S. Holocaust Museum in D.C., made after she likened the Holocaust to mask mandates – but she may have picked up a soup recipe there. In an interview Tuesday night, Greene was heard comparing Nazis and Nancy…
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A way to forgive debts and leave fields fallow — even if you’re not a farmer in Israel
What’s the best way to observe the shmita year? Perhaps a seven stranded havdalah candle, or a special set of bowls — we use special dishes for Passover, after all. For those of us who don’t work in agriculture, shmita can be easily overlooked. But “The Shmita Project,” a new exhibit at the Osher Marin…
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Johanna Kaplan’s short stories and Olga Tokarczuk’s (very) long novel: The Jewish books you need to read this month
Welcome to Forward Reads, your monthly tour of the Jewish literary landscape. I’m Irene Katz Connelly, a culture writer at the Forward, and I spend a lot of time combing through new releases so you can read the best books out there. This article originally ran in newsletter form. To sign up for Forward Reads…
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Gary Shteyngart on working in bed, writing from life and funding his pistachio addiction
It’s hard to know exactly how to feel while reading “Our Country Friends,” Gary Shteyngart’s latest novel. On one hand, it’s an indisputably funny book. (If you read it on the subway, prepare to freak out your neighbors by laughing loudly and often.) Set in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, the novel follows…
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Do the Madrigals from Disney’s ‘Encanto’ descend from Sephardic Jews?
While I was watching “Encanto,” I wondered if its magical Madrigals, the family at the heart of the Oscar-nominated Disney animated film, were Jewish. They’re close-knit to the point of being smothering. They’re successful yet grappling with generations of pain. And their powers come from a candle that has miraculously burned for 50 years —…
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2022’s Oscar nominees are full of Jewish connections
This week’s parsha concerns God’s instructions to the Israelites in the wilderness on the design of priestly temple garments, how to properly light the menorah and how to build the golden altar of incense. So perhaps it’s fitting that the Moses-y desert parable “Dune” is now nominated for the Oscar gold in costume design, cinematography…
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