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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Books
From a Budapest attic to the New York Knicks: A Holocaust survivor’s family journey
For the grandson of a Holocaust survivor, the irony of Dan Grunfeld’s first contract offer to play professional basketball was a bit on-the-nose. It was not just that it came from Germany. The team that wanted him was from Oldenburg — the first state to put the Nazi party in power. Grunfeld’s new book, By…
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The ‘Lehman Trilogy’ cast had questions about Jews and money — and a rabbi to answer them
Not long before the debut of Lehman Trilogy at London’s National Theatre, Rabbi Daniel Epstein was teaching the cast about kaddish. In a play dense with Jewish references, the prayer for the dead is a symbolic lodestar, and Epstein wanted the actors to know what it meant. Only three actors have lines in Lehman, which…
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What got lost when Oskar Schindler’s story became ‘Schindler’s List’
Editor’s Note: The director Steven Spielberg turns 75 on Dec. 18. To mark that momentous occasion, the Forward is running a series of essays reassessing his films. Read more of our “Spielberg at 75” series here. We’ve all seen this movie. Most likely, more than once. Most likely, in tears. So you already know the…
The Latest
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Books Steven ‘Shmuel’ Spielberg’s epic contribution to Yiddish culture
On December 18, iconic film director Steven Spielberg, will turn 75. No doubt, admirers of his work round the world will mark the event by watching some of his greatest movies, including “The Color Purple”, “Jaws” and “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial”. Others will return to movie theatres after a long plague-driven break, to catch his newest…
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The 12 best Jewish and Jew-ish TV series of 2021
It’s been a long year – again. The pandemic that kept us locked inside last winter is rearing its ugly head again, people are still protesting vaccines while wearing yellow Stars of David and now, just to make sure we have no small pleasures left, there’s a cream cheese shortage. Thankfully, though, it’s been a…
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How Steven Spielberg mentored a whole generation of filmmakers
Editor’s Note: The director Steven Spielberg turns 75 on Dec. 18. To mark that momentous occasion, the Forward is running a series of essays reassessing his films. Read more of our “Spielberg at 75” series here. Let’s say you were to time travel to 1968 on a mission to keep a short film called “Amblin’”…
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How a severely underrated movie turned Steven Spielberg into a 21st century Andy Warhol
Editor’s Note: The director Steven Spielberg turns 75 on Dec. 18. To mark that momentous occasion, the Forward is running a series of essays reassessing his films. Read more of our “Spielberg at 75” series here. What is “Ready Player One” trying to say? It’s a silly question, but an inescapable one. Steven Spielberg’s 28th…
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Yes, Kraft will really pay you $20 to eat halva instead of cheesecake* (*some restrictions apply)
Kraft Heinz, the producer of Philadelphia cream cheese announced they will pay select customers $20 each to not bake cheesecake for Christmas. The promotion comes as New York area bagel shops and other cream cheese users are running out of Philadelphia. A Forward investigation revealed that the cream cheese shortage is connected to limited water…
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Today in corporate propaganda: Jeff Bezos and William Shatner take the ultimate ego trip — to space!
If there is something vaguely sinister about launching a beloved 90-year-old actor into space on very phallic rocket to distract the world from an egregious pattern of alleged labor rights abuses, making a one-hour corporate propaganda film about the initiative for your own streaming platform does little to convince us otherwise. But I commend Amazon…
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How ‘Jaws’ started out as a movie and became a pop culture phenomenon
Editor’s Note: The director Steven Spielberg turns 75 on Dec. 18. To mark that momentous occasion, the Forward is running a series of essays reassessing his films. It’s the last weekend of August 1975, and my friends and I are excitedly flopping into our seats at the State Theater in downtown Ann Arbor, Michigan. We’ve…
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Was the movie that upended Steven Spielberg’s formula also his most autobiographical?
Editor’s Note: The director Steven Spielberg turns 75 on Dec. 18. To mark that momentous occasion, the Forward is running a series of essays reassessing his films. Read more of our “Spielberg at 75” series here. Audiences love Steven Spielberg for the same reason many cinephiles scorn him: his epic, unflagging earnestness. Critics and fellow…
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