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
-
That time Yiddishists met extraterrestrials a short while ago in a galaxy not far away
It was a normal summer internship at the Yiddish Book Center ... until the Jedi invaded our turf
-
Tavi Gevinson was the first influencer. On ‘Gossip Girl,’ she’s facing the consequences.
“Gossip Girl” is supposed to be a show about wealthy, terrible teens cheating on each other and being awful to service workers. But in the new version of “Gossip Girl,” the teachers are the center of attention. They run the Gossip Girl Instagram account, they blackmail their students and they’re even — problematically — at…
-
Couldn’t make Cannes? The (James) Caan Film Festival awaits.
While the film industry is busy taking in the sun — and, one imagines, some movies — in the French coastal resort town of Cannes, Eric Hynes is once again thinking about Caan — James Caan. “I think he’s underrated as a sort of reader of lines,” said Hynes, curator of film at Astoria’s Museum…
The Latest
-
WATCH NOW: November 3: The most copied Jewish building in the world
Watch now. Around the world, there are 35 replicas of 770 Eastern Parkway, the world headquarters of Lubavitch-Chabad in Brooklyn. Meet the photographers who have been documenting every one of these replicas, from Brazil to Milan to New Jersey, the historian who uncovered the building’s surprisingly secular history, and the architect who designed one of…
-
The new ‘Gossip Girl’ is supposed to be woke — so why won’t it discuss racism?
“You know you missed me — XOXO.” So read a sign trailing behind an airplane flying over Rockaway Beach last weekend. It was mysterious, but almost any millennial woman would know instantly what it was about. “Gossip Girl,” the hit 2007 show about wealthy New York City teens cheating on each other and drinking martinis,…
-
In Surfside, a Jewish tragedy receives a Jewish response
The volunteers trudged to the mansion’s front door, their heads covered, most of them wearing the same navy T-shirts they had been wearing all week, their uniform. It was about four hours shy of eight full days since the men of Hatzalah of South Florida responded to a call about a building in Surfside that…
-
Users reported an Instagram filter for featuring a swastika. It’s still up.
If you’ve ever wondered how you might look fully covered in tattoos, there are Instagram filters that can help you imagine it by projecting images onto your arms and chest. Unfortunately, you don’t get to choose the tats— and one popular filter, called “Old School,” places a Native American feather headdress adorned with a swastika…
-
Is Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Hollywood’ novel an apologia for Roman Polanski?
Quentin Tarantino changed film history with “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.” No, the film wasn’t a breakthrough work of cinema, rather, it literally rewrote the Tinseltown timeline by imagining an alternate ending to an epoch-defining tragedy. Two years later, Tarantino’s novelization of the 2019 movie — out now, complete with mass market-paperback packaging and…
-
These Facebook groups help writers find jobs — and Jews who discuss Israel are being kicked out
Binder groups — a secretive network of Facebook communities to help writers who aren’t cisgender men find writing jobs — are supposed to be safe spaces. But recently, Jews have been feeling as though they’ve become just as unwelcome as men. In the last few weeks, one group with approximately 12,300 members, Binders Full of…
-
Sacrifice through Heresy
Read this article in Yiddish Qorbanot: Offerings Poems by Alisha Kaplan SUNY Press, 2021 Many people believe that sacrificing for a greater good is a virtue. In the Jewish tradition, even martyrdom in the right context is called “the sanctification of God’s holy name.” But what should you do when holiness is weakened — by…
-
‘Pride is also a Yizkor’: Remembering LGBTQ Jews we’ve lost
“Pride is also a Yizkor.” Those were the words of the Forward’s archivist, Chana Pollack, early in Pride month, as she and I discussed her planned dive into the Forward’s archives in search of its queer history. Her point: Generations of LGBTQ Jews who have faced exclusion from their families and communities have wondered who…
-
Top 50 cover versions of Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’ ranked!
The definitive top 50 rankings of Leonard Cohen’s 'Hallelujah' cover versions
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
News Exclusive: ADL chief compares student protesters to ISIS and al-Qaida in address to Republican officials
- 2
News A Jewish farmer drove 600 miles to rescue a century-old synagogue. Now he’s building a new one in a cornfield.
- 3
Opinion Pete Hegseth is targeting a Jewish American hero — who’s next?
- 4
Opinion Greta Thunberg’s Gaza flotilla was never going to help Palestinians
In Case You Missed It
-
News Here’s how Adrienne Adams quietly got the coveted Hasidic nod Andrew Cumo longed for
-
Fast Forward 5 countries, including UK and Canada, sanction far-right Israeli ministers Ben-Gvir and Smotrich
-
Fast Forward New leader in RFK Jr.’s MAHA movement is really into the Protocols of the Elders of Zion
-
Opinion Why progressives must retire the slogan ‘free Palestine’
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
