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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How one Jewish mother became the matriarch of modern comedy
Jews have been at the forefront of American comedy since its inception. Folks like Eugene Levy, Harold Ramis, Mike Nichols and Elaine May helped to grow theatrical improvisation — or improv comedy — into the worldwide phenomenon it is today. But, until now, little had been shared about the woman who started it all, Viola…
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How Adolf Eichmann murdered Superman — and was sentenced to death for his crimes
Sixty years ago, on Dec. 15, 1961, Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann was sentenced to death, following one of the most publicized trials in history. Improbably, it became the basis of a Superman comic book. A chief architect of the Holocaust, Eichmann oversaw the Jews’ deportation to the extermination camps. After the war, he fled…
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6 decades of Bob Dylan’s art on exhibit in Miami
Bob Dylan may be famous for songs like “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “Like a Rolling Stone” — but the Nobel laureate has never been content to just write, sing and play his guitar. In addition to selling whiskey, making movies and once even starring in a Victoria’s Secret commercial, the ever-shapeshifting artist has also…
The Latest
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140 Tony nominations later, this Jewish impresario is still energizing Broadway
Theatrical producer Emanuel Azenberg likes to tell this story about the time, more than 30 years ago, when “Jerome Robbins’s Broadway” was in rehearsal. The show, which Azenberg was co-producing, was a compendium of brilliant musical numbers from the master choreographer’s Broadway career, but Robbins — born Jerome Rabinowitz — didn’t like the title. So…
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Six ways to celebrate the choreography in the new ‘West Side Story’
In many musicals, the dance is the icing on the cake — a sweet, sometimes saccharine flourish on top of an already constructed treat. But the “West Side Story” recipe is different. In the 1957 musical conceived, directed, and co-choreographed by Jerome Robbins, and the 1961 film adaptation, also choreographed and directed (in part) by…
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How Jewish is Hallmark’s ‘Eight Gifts of Hanukkah’?
I have a confession to make: I just enjoyed a Hallmark Channel Christmas movie. Or, all right; I’ll qualify that: It was “Eight Gifts of Hanukkah” — the one outlier in Hallmark’s “Countdown to Christmas” series (re-airing Dec. 12, 10 a.m. Eastern). And one reason I liked it is I view the channel in a…
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No cream cheese? No problem. A dozen alternate bagel toppings.
We’re sure you’ve heard by now. First it was toilet paper. Then coins. At last, the supply chain’s woes have hit us squarely in the Jewish soul: there’s a cream cheese shortage in New York. While various reports have it that some bagel places are still schmearing enough Philadelphia to top a sugar cone, many…
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The prickly reason Mel Gibson will never be canceled
The reason Mel Gibson still works in Hollywood has to do with some obscure — possibly Australian — practice called cactus-hugging. Earlier this week actor Josh Malina, writing for The Atlantic, wondered why Gibson, despite his many high-profile — and in the case of “Passion of the Christ,” highly lucrative — displays of antisemitism, may…
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Kwanzakkah celebrates power of dual identities, overcoming oppressions
For Carol Valoris, the holiday season used to evoke mixed feelings. As a white Jewish mother of two Black Jewish daughters, she described seeing her family zigzagging between Hanukkah and Kwanzaa. No matter which holiday the family was observing, she said, someone was always left out. “It always felt a little bittersweet,” said Valoris, 75,…
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Why did Sarah Silverman and Seth Rogen make a Christmas show — and why is it so bad?
What if Santa was a Jewish woman? That’s a question no one ever asked until “Santa, Inc.,” a new stop-animation show on HBOMax starring Seth Rogen as Santa and Sarah Silverman as an elf named Candy Smalls. Of course, no one really needed to ask that question. And even “Santa Inc.” barely addresses it —…
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Why I made a siddur for cigarettes and what it does (and doesn’t) mean
Before you is a cigarette box designed to look like a small prayer book. The idea for this object had been rattling around in my head since 2015. Realizing that I did not have the technical skills to make it myself, I contacted Rachel Jackson, a scribe and bookbinder, and during the summer of 2017…
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