Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of Jewish culture. Here, you’ll learn about the latest (and sometimes earliest) in Jewish art, music, film, theater, books as well as the secret Jewish history of everything and everyone from The Rolling Stones to…
Culture
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I have seen the future of America — in a pastrami sandwich in Queens
San Wei, which serves pastrami sandwiches along with churros and biang biang noodles, represents an immigrant's fulfillment of the American dream
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A “Black x Jewish” way to confront racism and antisemitism
A BET special, “Content for Change: Black x Jewish,” explores the histories of oppression experienced by Black Americans and non-Black Jewish Americans, as well as the need to build solidarity between the groups. Its producer is Lacey Schwartz Delgado, a Black Jewish woman whose internationally acclaimed film “Little White Lie” revealed her own complex identity…
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Why Anthony Bourdain was his own best storyteller
The best episode of Anthony Bourdain’s food and travel show “No Reservations” is probably “Beirut.” Bourdain and his crew were in Lebanon in 2006. They filmed two scenes and then the second Israel-Lebanon war started. Bourdain’s local fixers knew what was coming and the host had to reckon with what he was doing — the…
The Latest
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How Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg created history’s most dangerous golem
An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook’s Battle for Domination By Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang Harper, $29.99, 352 pages It should be a great Jewish American success story. Perhaps the greatest. Mark, Jewish son of a psychiatrist and a dentist, has a vision of how to harness technology to connect people. Sheryl, daughter of a college…
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How Judy Chicago became part of art history
Judy Chicago, whose immense body of work draws on overlooked women’s history, the tragedy of the recent Jewish past and features no small amount of literal fireworks, is having yet another moment. Born Judith Sylvia Cohen in (naturally) Chicago, the artist, whose name is regularly appended with words like “controversial,” will receive her first-ever retrospective…
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Why does everyone want Jerusalem? CNN investigates in a new docuseries
Sunday night, after Jews around the world mourn the destruction of the Temples in Jerusalem on Tisha B’av, CNN will premiere a series that — in so many words — traces 3,000 years’ worth of conflict to the laying of those structures’ cornerstones. Solomon’s Temple, author Susan Wise Bauer argues in “Jerusalem: City of Faith…
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2021 Emmys: All the Jewish nominees, from Jurnee Smollett to Michael Douglas
(JTA) — At the last Emmy Awards, “Schitt’s Creek,” the comedy from Jewish father-son duo Eugene and Dan Levy, swept the night, winning every comedy category for its sixth and final season. While there’s no big Jewish show to cheer on for another powerhouse performance this year, there’s still a bevy of Jewish nominees, which…
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Canceled fashion blogger is easy to hate — but it’s no excuse for antisemitism
Leandra Medine Cohen, founder of quirky fashion site Man Repeller, said she always assumed she’d be canceled — she just thought it would be because she was a terrible leader, not because of racism or privilege. She didn’t even realize she was privileged, she said in a recent podcast interview, until last summer’s racial justice…
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A newly-animated Anne Frank for today’s Europe
“She’s the greatest spiritual treasure this country has produced since Rembrandt,” a modern-day Dutch policeman explains in Ari Folman’s “Where is Anne Frank,” which recently premiered at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. He’s speaking to a little girl in 1940s clothing who is skating down a frozen canal in Amsterdam and who introduces herself as…
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Ari Folman wants his ‘Anne Frank’ to inspire and motivate young audiences
Though Ari Folman’s “Where Is Anne Frank” received a 15-minute standing ovation at its Cannes Film Festival premiere, the animated movie wasn’t aimed at the film industry types whose eyes welled with tears in the Palais Des Festivals. Folman made the story for children. The animated story gives a voice and a face to Kitty,…
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Is the organ donation system run by a ‘God Committee’? This writer-director wants us to ask.
When writer-director Austin Stark, 42, heard about a wealthy man in desperate need of a liver transplant bribing a hospital for an organ, he was shocked and appalled — and couldn’t stop thinking about it. “And then I read a powerful play by Mark St. Germain, which explores a very similar situation, and in doing…
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For Laurel and Hardy, a surprisingly deep Jewish history
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the first appearance in the same film, “The Lucky Dog” (1921) by Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, the comedy duo whose work featured a surprising amount of Yiddishkeit. At the start of the 1930 film “Blotto,” during a moment of domestic discord, Laurel puzzles over a Yiddish newspaper,…
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Fast Forward Why the Antisemitism Awareness Act now has a religious liberty clause to protect ‘Jews killed Jesus’ statements
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Culture Trump wants to honor Hannah Arendt in a ‘Garden of American Heroes.’ Is this a joke?
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Fast Forward The invitation said, ‘No Jews.’ The response from campus officials, at least, was real.
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News Why Zohran Mamdani believes he’ll win over Jewish voters, as Israel critic surges to second behind Cuomo in NYC mayoral race
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Fast Forward The fires in Israel are under control — but debate is raging over their cause
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Fast Forward Argentina declassifies more than 1,800 files on Nazi escape via ‘rat-lines’ to South America
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Fast Forward Betar USA founder banned from World Zionist Congress over feud with Israeli firebrand Shai Davidai
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News School Israel trip turns ‘terrifying’ for LA students attacked by Israeli teens
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