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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An immigrant child’s trauma in a ‘Beautiful Country’
Qian Julie Wang is the author of The New York Times bestseller “Beautiful Country,” a moving memoir of her childhood as an undocumented Chinese immigrant in New York, written on her iPhone during her subway commute to her job as a lawyer. She is the founder and leader of the Jews of Color group at…
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If Steven Spielberg had known about this Dutch hero, he wouldn’t have made ‘Schindler’s List’
Jan Brokken’s “The Just” recounts how in wartime Lithuania, Dutch consul Jan Zwartendijk and Japanese consul Chiune Sugihara saved thousands of lives by issuing permits admitting Jewish refugees to the Dutch colony of Curaçao by way of Japan. Yet only in 2018, after the original edition of “The Just” was published in the Netherlands, was…
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After America’s deadliest antisemitic incident, grief, trauma and resilience
Squirrel Hill: The Tree of Life Synagogue Shooting and the Soul of a Neighborhood By Mark Oppenheimer Knopf, 320 pages, $28.95 After each mass shooting, once the political posturing subsides and the press spotlight moves on, the affected families and communities tend to fade from public consciousness. But what happens to them next? “When the…
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Film & TV Neil Diamond’s blackface scene might be the most embarrassing moment in Jewish cinema history
On October 6th 1927, the original film production of “The Jazz Singer” made its world premiere at the Warners’ Theatre in midtown Manhattan. (I know, I know — seems like just yesterday, right?) Though difficult to sit through these days, even without the segments where Al Jolson appears in blackface, “The Jazz Singer” nevertheless continues…
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Sarah Silverman, let’s not use the word ‘Jewface’
Sarah Silverman has once more weighed in on a perennial debate in the world of casting: who gets to play a Jew? It’s a slippery question, and also the name of a parlor game a friend of mine likes to play. Per this friend’s rules, Zachary Levi, a non-Jew who changed his last name from…
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German hotel requires rock star to hide Star of David
Gil Ofarim has been a professional musician since 1997, when his song “Round ‘n’ Round (It Goes)” made the Top 40 charts in his native Germany. While his teen heartthrob days may have waned, he’s still well-known, particularly in Germany. Yet despite his fame, a concierge told the 39-year-old rocker Tuesday that he could not…
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Jewish character actor Nehemia Persoff looks back at ups and downs of his first 102 years
(JTA) — When actor, painter and writer Nehemia Persoff, at times dubbed “the last survivor of Hollywood’s golden age,” was a three-year old growing up in Jerusalem, he fell in love with his kindergarten teacher. Desperate to attract her attention, little Nehemia got on his trike and rode it in smaller and smaller circles until…
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Was her parents’ tempestuous marriage part of an elaborate cover story? She may never know for sure.
Asylum: A Memoir of Family Secrets By Judy Bolton-Fasman Mandel Vilar Press, 248 pages, $24.95 The most frustrating moment in Judy Bolton-Fasman’s beautifully-written family memoir, “Asylum,” comes in the prologue, titled “Burn This.” Her father has mailed her an envelope filled with what she imagines to be his long-held secrets. Before she opens it, though,…
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As mathematic geniuses go, this Jewish enigma was no Stephen Hawking
In the pantheon of films about real-life mathematicians — think Alan Turing in “The Imitation Game,” Stephen Hawking in “The Theory of Everything,” or even John Nash in “A Beautiful Mind” — Stan Ulam, the title character in “The Adventures of a Mathematician,” falls a tad short. Perhaps comparisons are unfair. After all, Turing (Benedict…
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In honoring those who wage ‘humane’ war, has the Nobel Peace Prize become a force of villainy?
Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War By Samuel Moyn Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 416 pages, $25.49 Slavery is evil. It is also a part of human nature. Human beings are aggressive, violent creatures, which is why you find slavery in every society in human history. Ergo, attempts to get rid of…
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The 12 greatest Jewish feats in baseball playoff history
Ah, October — when Jewish holidays, fall colors, Halloween and the baseball postseason combine to make for a particularly festive time of the year. Of course, when we think of Jewish baseball heroics in October, we immediately (and understandably) think of Sandy Koufax. But while the “Left Arm of God” certainly ranks high on any…
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