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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A young man, an old man and the secrets of clamming
Sammy held the dark, odd-shaped, deep brown clump of stuff in his hand, showed it to me and said, ”Grandpa, is this doo-doo?” “NO-NO, no doo- doo, absolutely not,” I said. “It’s pure, clean, good mud. And that’s where the clams live.” “”Yuck, mud’s not clean; how can mud be clean?” Sammy and I had…
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Isaac Bashevis Singer’s return to Ellis Island, in never-before-seen photos
The day Isaac Bashevis Singer returned to Ellis Island was “a beautiful, cold day,” said the photographer Robert A. Cumins. Singer, who was born in Poland, had first set foot there in 1935 as a refugee fleeing antisemitism. Nearly half a century later, in 1979, he returned with a delegation of international Jewish leaders brought…
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The most phenomenally successful Jewish author you’ve probably never heard of
In a suburban Boston retirement community resides one of the most successful living Jewish American authors, the 94-year-old Noah Gordon. His book sales are over 25 million and his name is often mentioned in the same breath as Ken Follett’s. He’s a household name, just not in the United States. Though his first novel, “The…
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On Emma Lazarus’ birthday, how the poet inspired Laurie Anderson
Editpr’s Note: A version of this piece was published by the Forward in 2019; we’re revisiting it on the occasion of Emma Lazarus’ birthday. Lazarus was born on July 22, 1849. This tale features feminist heroes not normally paired: the 19th-century poet Emma Lazarus and the (very alive) avant-garde musician and artist Laurie Anderson. Of…
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In the West Bank, confronting pain and oppression with humor and absurdity
“Let It Be Morning,” the latest film from Eran Kolirin, the Israeli director best-known for his 2007 comedy “The Band’s Visit,” is another gently absurd comedy with a majority Arab cast. The film, which had its world premiere in Un Certain Régard at the Cannes Film Festival, is about Sami, a Palestinian telecom executive, who…
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A life with (and now without) Ronit Elkabetz
Israeli cinema had a banner year at the recently-concluded Cannes Film Festival — three films were featured in the official selection. Taken together, the Israeli entries formed a powerful triptych of the country’s society and culture. Nadav Lapid’s Jury-Prize-winning “Ahed’s Knee” was an incendiary critique of life as an artist. Eran Kolorin’s “Let It Be…
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Hitler wanted his 1936 Olympics to wow the world. The Forward highlighted protest games instead.
The modern Olympic games, first held in Athens in the summer of 1896, predate the Forward’s founding by less than one year. In the 52 winter and summer games to take place since, the Jewish stories have ranged from tales of perseverance and success, as in the victories of Jewish athletes like Mark Spitz and…
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How a Yiddish theater mecca became ‘the church of rock ‘n’ roll’
2021 marks the 50th anniversary of the closing of the Fillmore East, the iconic theater that early on was dubbed by a member of the Grateful Dead as “The Church of Rock n Roll.” And while the Fillmore is best known for the way it mainstreamed youth music, this rock ‘n’ roll church also has…
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We’ll always have Paris (even if Paris can never be the same)
The pandemic had me fearing I might die without getting to use my miles. Soon after it was announced that France was reopening, our son, whose wife grew up there, said, “We’re taking the baby to Paris. Want to come?” Since I’m a Jewish mother and now the grandmother of an adorable 20-month-old, he had…
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From Israel, an anguished cry of rage, pain and love
Two years after he won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival with his existential and diasporic parable “Synonyms,” Israeli auteur Nadav Lapid traded the marshes of Prussia for the beaches of Southern France, where his latest film, “Ahed’s Knee” picked up the Prix de la Jury at the 74th Cannes Film Festival. Lapid,…
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In Lakewood, New Jersey, a garden blooms — and so does a community
Wearing a broadbrimmed straw garden hat, Tova Herskovitz looked over the raised beds and smiled. The first carrot tops were poking through the chocolate-colored soil, the purple kale was already looking hearty, and so was the mint. “Everybody should take some mint home with them,” she said. As a longtime organizer, Herskovitz loves it when…
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