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 Neil Diamond’s most personal song chronicled his journey out of Brooklyn
'Brooklyn Roads' begins as an exercise in nostalgia but becomes so much more
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Music In 1985, they wrote the granddaddy of all Bible story songs
Inspired in part by all the Jewish artists on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Songs, the Forward decided it was time to rank the best Jewish pop songs of all time. You can find the whole list and accompanying essays here. The staccato opening minor chord progression on keyboards, rhythmic reggae percussion, eerie…
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Music How a dysfunctional New York punk band personified the postwar Jewish struggle
Inspired in part by all the Jewish artists on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Songs, the Forward decided it was time to rank the best Jewish pop songs of all time. You can find the whole list and accompanying essays here. Like the Beatles, the Ramones were four distinct personalities. There was the…
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Audacious and transgressive, Randy Newman’s satire of bigotry still has the power to shock and awe
Inspired in part by all the Jewish artists on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Songs, the Forward decided it was time to rank the best Jewish pop songs of all time. You can find the whole list and accompanying essays here. Lester Maddox’s name doesn’t have a lot of currency today. Maddox is…
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Is the most popular song about New York really a stealth Jewish anthem?
Inspired in part by all the Jewish artists on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Songs, the Forward decided it was time to rank the best Jewish pop songs of all time. You can find the whole list and accompanying essays here. “New York, New York,” the theme song from Martin Scorsese’s musical of…
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The second time Lou Reed paid homage to his Jewish mentor
Inspired in part by all the Jewish artists on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Songs, the Forward decided it was time to rank the best Jewish pop songs of all time. You can find the whole list and accompanying essays here. The poet and writer Delmore Schwartz, who at 25 published one of…
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The ‘dark and funny’ song that Leonard Cohen would have nailed to a church door
Inspired in part by all the Jewish artists on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Songs, the Forward decided it was time to rank the best Jewish pop songs of all time. You can find the whole list and accompanying essays here. Leonard Cohen gave us one of the most fierce, apocalyptic songs of…
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How a Jewish song with gospel roots became a 1960s garage band standard
Inspired in part by all the Jewish artists on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Songs, the Forward decided it was time to rank the best Jewish pop songs of all time. You can find the whole list and accompanying essays here. The Blues Project were one of New York’s seminal bands in the…
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What’s a Jewish song anyway — and how can you recognize one when you hear it?
Inspired in part by all the Jewish artists on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Songs, the Forward decided it was time to rank the best Jewish pop songs of all time. You can find the whole list and accompanying essays here. What is a Jewish song? Is it one that connects you to…
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Music When pop music’s fascination with Nazi symbols and history went way over the line
Inspired in part by all the Jewish artists on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Songs, the Forward decided it was time to rank the best Jewish pop songs of all time. You can find the whole list and accompanying essays here. MAGA politicians and talk show hosts with the gall to compare mask…
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Telling the Story: The most important Jewish Civil Rights leader you may not have heard of
This is not a trick question: Who was the most important – or the highest-ranking, or most influential – Jew in the civil rights movement? While many may quickly answer Rabbi Abraham Heschel or the martyrs Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, and those with a deeper knowledge of movement history might suggest Martin Luther King’s…
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Culture My father was my hero and, when he was dying, I wrote this song for him