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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Why we must keep talking about the horrors of Toulouse — even if we still can’t comprehend them
“Ten years have passed.” With these four words, French president Emmanuel Macron began a speech yesterday in the southern city of Toulouse. Using a biblical cadence, over the course of his speech, Macron repeated these four words, which formed a leitmotif, one that announced both a matter of fact and a fact that will always…
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‘The shame stayed with me.’ How a bullying incident from 1965 became an Oscar nominee.
Sadly, it could have been any day in fifth grade. A kid got the whole class in trouble, so the whole class retaliated, piling onto him outside of the school. Some spat, some hit – taking turns until the principal and teacher broke it up. Jay Rosenblatt had largely forgotten the specifics of why he…
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In Venice, why the oldest Jewish ghetto in the world still matters
A new book on the Venetian Ghetto, formed by the municipal government of Venice in the early 1500s to confine Italian Jews, explores the ongoing cultural impact of this first-ever such space. Initially intended to segregate and control Jewish people, centuries later during the Second World War, over 1,000 Nazi ghettos were established across Europe…
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Bono and Nancy Pelosi just compared Zelenskyy and St. Patrick. Should we be upset?
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy is Jewish; this is hard to miss, at least within the Jewish media circles in which I run. Perhaps it is less widely known by non-Jews, but given the fact that one of the central refutations of Putin’s accusation of Nazism in Ukraine is that Zelenskyy is Jewish, something that has…
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In Ukraine, much of the world’s matzah supply is under fire
Before the Holocaust, Dnipro, a city in eastern Ukraine on the Dnieper River, had a rich Jewish history, home to tens of thousands of Jews. But, during Nazi occupation, the population plummeted from 80,000 to about 700, with at least 20,000 Jews murdered by firing squads while others fled or were deported. Today, Dnipro is…
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Books Celebrate Nowruz with these books by Iranian Jewish women
There’s a long history of women writing as a feminist act. For someone to declare the social value of their experiences — either through fiction, or in memoir, written with a strong “I” — is almost inherently activist. For Iranian Jewish women, who come from a culture that doesn’t always encourage their expression, literature can…
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April 5: The Forverts at 125: The Expanding Audience and Innovation of Our Storied Yiddish Publication
Special Donor-Only Event We are thrilled to host this special, donor-only event on April 5 at 7 p.m. ET / 4 p.m. PT. On April 5, join the Forward’s Yiddish Editor, Rukhl Schaechter, and her assistant, Rabbi Zachary Golden, to learn about the exciting developments in the world of the Yiddish Forverts. Here at The…
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Jews are joining the fight to defend Ukraine — we’ve been here before
On February 26, just two days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Embassy in Israel issued an invitation to its “dear compatriots, brothers and all caring citizens of Israel.” This was an unusual invitation: it was directed to all of those “who wish to participate in combat actions against the Russian aggressor. The response…
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A Rikers Island Purim story: Finding God behind the gates
A Jewish corrections officer finds a way to observe the holiday — and share the mitzvah
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In Zelenskyy’s Mordechai-like Purim plea, Biden is as uneasy as Esther
Centuries ago, in a story we tell each year on this night, a plea was made to someone with access to power, but who faced no small risk. “Do not imagine that you, of all the Jews, will escape with your life by being in the king’s palace,” Mordechai, a Jew living in Persia told…
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Five costumes for this year’s combination Purim and St. Patrick’s Day
At various points in history, Jewish and Irish immigrants filled the tenements of New York City. Both were poor, foreign groups looked down upon by the rest of America. We’ve come a long way from those days, but Jewish and Irish people still share something important — the tradition of getting wasted once a year…
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