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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For Mort Sahl, being Jewish meant being part of the opposition
The American Jewish standup comedian Mort Sahl, who died Oct. 26 at age 94, provided spontaneous garrulity that first galvanized audiences during the tight-lipped Eisenhower era. At a time when Senator Joseph McCarthy dominated Washington, D.C. politics, Sahl represented free speech. The English Jewish author Jonathan Miller opined that Sahl and other Jewish comedians made…
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In the Warsaw Ghetto, where an Indian play imagined the worst that was yet to come
A new novel revives a forgotten episode within the Warsaw Ghetto — and imagines what might happen after
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In a very Jewish World Series, it’s Astros vs. Braves, and rabbi vs. rabbi
Rabbi Adam Starr, who leads an Orthodox synagogue in Atlanta, found a way to make this year’s World Series more meaningful: he proposed a holy wager. Tuesday afternoon — with only a couple hours to go before the first pitch of Game 1 — the longtime Braves fan texted his Houston-area colleague, Rabbi Barry Gelman,…
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Was Andy Griffith’s first big hit really an old Yiddish vaudeville routine?
Before he was the iconic sheriff of fictional Mayberry, the bumbling Air Force recruit in “No Time For Sergeants” or even the deranged drifter in “A Face In the Crowd,” Andy Griffith started out as a comic dialect monologist. He told colorful and droll country tales ladled out in his mellifluous “molasses in January,” North…
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How a notorious Nazi almost got a Hollywood biopic — and why Kubrick refused to direct
Albert Speer, the Nazi architect who built a Cathedral of Light for Hitler and commanded millions of prisoners in the forced production of weaponry, had a comfortable second life. After serving 20 years in prison, Speer became a best-selling author, penning the memoir “Inside The Third Reich.” Naturally, in 1971, he and his publisher were…
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Question everything you think you know about the universe: Physicist Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
The key to understanding the universe scientifically is questioning everything you think you know — which also happens to be one of the fundamental tenets of Judaism. That’s the conclusion Chanda Prescod-Weinstein reaches with her book, “The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred.” Describing her work as living “at the…
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With a new score and new ideas, ‘The Golem’ is a must for your Jewish Halloween
How do you breathe new life into an age-old tale of creation? With a little help from the bassist of The Flaming Lips. On Oct. 28, Jewish arts and culture non-profit Reboot is launching “The Golem Rescored” a digital series that adds a fresh score to the 1920 German Expressionist classic “The Golem: How He…
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At first I didn’t want to make ‘The Chosen’ — then ‘The Chosen’ changed my life
Making this movie changed my life. Published in 1967, Chaim Potok’s book, “The Chosen,” is regarded as one of the great Jewish American novels. Set in Brooklyn at the end of WWII, it explores the complex relationship between two Jewish boys, one modern orthodox and the other the genius son of a Hasidic rebbe (the…
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Why this will be the most Jewish World Series in baseball history
The immediate narrative surrounding the 2021 World Series between the Atlanta Braves and the Houston Astros is that it matches teams that no one outside their respective fan bases wants to root for. The Astros are one year removed from being exposed, although largely unpunished, in the largest sign-stealing scandal in baseball history (one’s anger…
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The Jewish books you need to read this month, from Paul Auster to Louise Glück
Welcome to Forward Reads, your monthly tour of the Jewish literary landscape. I’m 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 and get book…
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Who does hummus belong to — and could it have the power to bring peace to the Middle East?
Hummus, the dish of cooked chickpeas, tahini, lemon juice, garlic and spices is a national favorite in Israel and across the Levant. Cherished alike by diners of different faiths, hummus became the unlikely center of so-called Hummus Wars in 2008, when a proprietary spat arose between Lebanese and Israeli restauranteurs. This and related matters are…
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