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 stories behind the art on my (and your) walls
From my desk, I can see a cloudy blue sky. Below it, the Catskills in autumn — lavender mountains and an empty stretch of road beside the water. Lower down, a spoonbill contemplates the water below him. Maybe he’s looking for a fish. Some distance away, unfazed by the incongruous presence of autumn mountains and winter…
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Why this boxing champ’s jacket says “Remember the Masada”
If you’re Jewish, and you can swing a bat or throw a punch, you’re the Hebrew Hammer. That’s how it works. So it follows that Cletus Seldin, a pro boxer straight out of Long Island who wears a Star of David on his trunks, is the Hebrew Hammer. That’s how it works. “I love it,”…
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The likely MLB Manager of the Year has Hebrew written all over him — literally
Update: The Dodgers beat the Giants Thursday night to take the National League Divisional Series. The manager of the San Francisco Giants wants the world to know he’s Jewish. He has a Star of David tattoo on one leg and a “Never Again” tattoo on the other. He once signed a contract for $1,000,018 —…
The Latest
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Art After the horrors of the Nazi invasion, a darkly gorgeous fairy tale emerges
The Polish artist Erna Rosenstein (1913-2004) often called herself a fairy or a witch. In letters to a friend, she would sign off as “Fairy Rosenstein.” Rosenstein had a long-running interest in fairy tales and wrote and illustrated her own, like the charmingly surreal, surreally charming “Tiny Tale of Snail and All His Friends.” And…
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They were the most important band of the 80s — even if they broke up a decade before
When I think of the 1980s, I think of The Velvet Underground. Sure, the band itself had ceased to exist in any meaningful way back in August 1970, when Lou Reed walked out and went home to Long Island following a legendary stand at Max’s Kansas City. And sure, there was little to no evidence…
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Why you never really saw the Velvet Underground — even if you think you did
I doubt I’m the only one who secretly loves it when a movie begins with a seizure warning. Fine, maybe I am, but hear me out. Most movies lack a single striking image. Visually overwhelming cinema, the kind you feel in your whole body and not just your head, is a rare thing. So when…
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Books ‘A hypocrite’: Israelis in publishing say Sally Rooney is turning her back on Hebrew readers
Like many Israelis, Shelley Goldman, a retired book and newspaper editor from Tel Aviv, was shocked when Irish author Sally Rooney said she will not sell the Hebrew-language rights to her latest book to a publishing house that doesn’t abide by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement’s guidelines. Rooney said in a statement Tuesday that…
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Books ‘What she’s doing is anti-translation.’ Why Israeli translators are upset about Rooney’s boycott.
Sally Rooney’s decision to refuse the translation rights of her latest novel to “Israeli-based” publishers has implications not just for BDS, but for the greater dialogue across languages. While Rooney clarified her position to state that she is not boycotting Hebrew, the prospect of a widely-available Hebrew translation not published in Israel seems unlikely. In…
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The Sally Rooney boycott brouhaha is right out of a Sally Rooney novel
By now you’ve heard: Sally Rooney, the millennial Irish author whose three novels have launched a thousand thinkpieces, is refusing to let an Israeli publishing house translate and distribute her latest book, “Beautiful World, Where Are You.” That choice prompted the literary brouhaha of the week, especially after Rooney, pressed on her decision, released a…
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This woman thought a Holocaust diet was a good idea
It can be almost physically painful to look at photos of concentration camp prisoners, so emaciated that you can see the shapes of their skulls, their kneecaps, their sternums in sharp relief. Those photos are one of the starkest, most impactful ways of driving home the horrors of the Holocaust. Unless you’re Gwen Shamblin, a…
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Does Sarah Silverman actually have a point about ‘Jewface?’
On a recent podcast, the comedian Sarah Silverman spoke at length about the trend of casting non-Jewish actors in major Jewish roles. Despite Silverman’s professional track record of wild japes, she clearly meant every word of it. Last November, Silverman briefly introduced the same subject on the “Howard Stern Show.” This time, she cited specific…
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