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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The ‘dark and funny’ song that Leonard Cohen would have nailed to a church door
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. Leonard Cohen gave us one of the most fierce, apocalyptic songs of…
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Music A ‘Dachau’ song so shocking and transformative, there’s nothing else like it
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. “Some white folks think it’s hip to have Blacks in their band….
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How a Jewish song with gospel roots became a 1960s garage band standard
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. The Blues Project were one of New York’s seminal bands in the…
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In Bob Dylan’s mysterious 1975 masterpiece, is he referencing the Talmud?
Dozens of Dylan songs can be considered Jewish — and 'Idiot Wind' more than most.
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Music In 1985, they wrote the granddaddy of all Bible story songs
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. The staccato opening minor chord progression on keyboards, rhythmic reggae percussion, eerie…
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Music How a dysfunctional New York punk band personified the postwar Jewish struggle
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. Like the Beatles, the Ramones were four distinct personalities. There was the…
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Music When pop music’s fascination with Nazi symbols and history went way over the line
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. MAGA politicians and talk show hosts with the gall to compare mask…
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What’s a Jewish song anyway — and how can you recognize one when you hear it?
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. What is a Jewish song? Is it one that connects you to…
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Telling the Story: The most important Jewish Civil Rights leader you may not have heard of
This is not a trick question: Who was the most important – or the highest-ranking, or most influential – Jew in the civil rights movement? While many may quickly answer Rabbi Abraham Heschel or the martyrs Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, and those with a deeper knowledge of movement history might suggest Martin Luther King’s…
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‘Once We Were Slaves’ examines fluidity of race through a Jewish lens
Have you heard the story of the Jewish mother and children who were born enslaved in the Caribbean and became some of the wealthiest Jews in New York? Professor Laura Arnold Leibman was researching Jewish communities in Barbados when she discovered two small ivory portraits belonging to a Jewish heiress from New York. She traced…
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Books No, Anne Frank’s diary would not be an adequate replacement for ‘Maus’ in Tennessee schools
It would seem counterintuitive that a graphic novel featuring mice and cats as Jews and Nazis would be a more effective Holocaust teaching tool than the diary of a young girl who died in Bergen-Belsen. Yet, after a Tennessee school district unanimously voted to ban Art Spiegelman’s “Maus” from its eighth grade curriculum due to…
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