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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Al Franken says America feels like Nazi Germany in the ’30s. Is he right?
When it comes to democracy and being Jewish, former Senator Al Franken knows whereof he speaks. But, given his other vocation as a comedy writer, some critics will surely think his latest remarks – likening America today to early Nazi Germany – are a joke. In the most recent episode of “The Al Franken Podcast,”…
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Coming to Broadway this spring, a bevy of Jewish themes and writers
From Richard Rodgers’s melodic music to Arthur Miller’s tragic dramas to Stephen Sondheim’s brilliant scores, Jewish artists have been essential contributors to Broadway theater. This year’s spring season is a testament to that legacy, with a list that includes Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning Jewish playwrights and librettists. I talked to three: Harvey Fierstein, a…
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Her father said she couldn’t, but Leonard Bernstein said she could — the triumph of a Jewish American conductor
What makes Bernadette Wegenstein’s “The Conductor” such a winning documentary is its title character Marin Alsop, the first woman to lead a major American symphony orchestra, specifically the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO). The 65-year-old New York native, passionate, steadfast and, devoid of all pretension, is just plain likable. She faced many closed doors, yet persisted…
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At 95, this visionary Jewish artist can’t stop painting — and painting and painting
“I remember showing off to my father by reading the Forverts in Yiddish. I can’t do that anymore!” No, but soon-to-be 95-year-old artist Leo Segedin still paints. Every day, he gets up at 5 a.m., has coffee and a full breakfast and by 6:30 is at his easel. He works until his eyes hurt. Then,…
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The Nazis looted more than 500 of their paintings; a Jewish collector’s heirs still seek justice and restitution
On Sunday, Pauline Baer de Perignon stood in front of the Marquise de Parbére for the last time. The painting of the Marquise, the mistress of Philippe II the duc d’Orleans, by Nicholas Largilliere is on exhibition at Sotheby’s New York in advance of an auction this Thursday. It is in New York City thanks…
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Narrowly escaping the Nazis, a wandering Jewish book improbably survives to tell its own tale
The Pages By Hugo Hamilton Alfred A. Knopf, 272 pp, $28 Rebellion By Joseph Roth Translated from the German by Michael Hofmann Everyman’s Library, 168 pp, $24 May 10, 1933, was Kristallnacht for printed books, a day on which gleeful mobs tossed millions of volumes into bonfires in cities throughout Germany. Among the 30,000 titles…
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She filmed the final days of her father’s life. Here’s what she wants us to know about assisted death.
Ondi Timoner never meant to make a documentary about her father. But then, he decided to end his life at the age of 92. For over a decade, Timoner, who directed acclaimed films about alt-rock group the Dandy Warhols, internet CEO Josh Harris and comedian Russell Brand, has been developing a narrative script about her…
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Boors, clowns, crazies, weirdos, a pet parakeet — and other hazards of online dating for a mature Jew
Maybe It’s Me: On Being the Wrong Kind of Woman By Eileen Pollack Delphinium, 288 pages, $27 It was the title essay, about Eileen Pollack’s late-life romantic struggles with boorish men, that first drew me to “Maybe It’s Me.” Pollack’s riffs on online dating, admittedly an easy target, are hilarious. And her rueful observations about…
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A kids’ guide to gender and sexuality arrives in Yiddish – and hopes to reach Hasidic children
Hasidic children will learn about LGBTQ allyship, gender expression and the diverse world of identity when “You Be You: The Kid’s Guide to Gender, Sexuality and Family” arrives in Yiddish Jan. 31. The author, Jonathan Branfman, first published the book in English in 2019. His goal was to make a resource that offers stigma-free information…
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How Ady Barkan’s story sparked a movement
Editor’s Note: “Not Going Quietly” is premiering on PBS’ “POV” Monday, Jan. 24 at 10 p.m. To mark it’s TV debut we have republished this interview with director Nicholas Bruckman from August 11, 2021. When Nicholas Bruckman met Ady Barkan in early 2018, he was prepared to be bummed out. Barkan had just confronted then-Senator…
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Is ‘Rifkin’s Festival’ Woody Allen’s love letter to cinema — or something more cynical?
“Rifkin’s Festival,” Woody Allen’s 49th feature, has a marketing problem. I’m not really alluding to the obvious issues. Not the HBO series about the alleged – and denied by Allen – sexual abuse of his daughter Dylan Farrow (full disclosure, I was a talking head in said series). Or even something like the #MeToo press…
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