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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Can anyone help Kathryn Grody and Mandy Patinkin find their lost boys?
For 15 years, Kathryn Grody and Mandy Patinkin have been searching for their sons. Apparently, during an apartment-move in 2006, they lost the two boys, ages 5 and 2. Well, not the real-life boys, but a painting of them that used to hang chez Grody and Patinkin. “I noticed the frame seemed slightly warped, so…
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After a house is destroyed in a fire, a Jewish artist finds a way to preserve its spirit
Driving up the hill, there was a point where you could always catch the first glimpse of the house, the pitch of the roof and the top of this one tall tree. Whenever Windy Dougall came home to visit her family, that spot in the road was when she knew she was home. “It was…
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What does the Talmud say about Larry David spilling coffee on a Klansman’s robe?
The fact that Judaism has its own vast corpus of legal arguments is of little interest to Larry David — he’s a law unto himself. But every so often his actions give way to a question of Talmudic precedent. When, for instance, Larry accidentally spilled coffee on a Klansman’s robe on Sunday’s episode and then…
The Latest
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Is ‘Charm Circle’ a Jewish ‘Grey Gardens,’ or a failed therapy session?
The first thing I did after finishing “Charm Circle” was clean my room. Named for a patch of Kew Garden Hills in Queens, NY, where red brick semidetached homes form a pseudo suburb, the documentary by Nira Burstein is as intimate — and dirty — as filmmaking gets. Burstein follows her parents, Uri and Raya,…
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Mizrahi documentary is personal and political homage to hope and resistance
Michale Boganim grew up hearing her father’s stories of migrating from Morocco to Israel, only to be blindsided by blatant discrimination in the Promised Land. One of many who journeyed from North Africa, the Middle East, and parts of the Caucasus to Israel in search of brotherhood and opportunity, Charlie Boganim responded by becoming a…
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Hey Starbucks — where are the Hanukkah seasonal lattes?
For many people, it’s not truly fall until Starbucks launches the Pumpkin Spice Latte. The same goes for Christmas season; when the coffee chain’s iconic red, white and green Christmas cups, filled with seasonal drinks like peppermint, chestnut praline or gingerbread lattes, become available — as they did last week — you know it’s time…
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Meet the greatest Jewish sportscasters of all time
On July 2, 1921, one hundred years ago, 100,000 fans elbowed their way into Boyle’s Thirty Acres in Jersey City, New Jersey to see the highly anticipated heavyweight championship fight between Jack Dempsey and Georges Carpentier. Dempsey retained the title with a fourth-round knockout of the Frenchman. The Dempsey-Carpentier fight marked the first time fans…
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The Jewish character on ‘Succession’ is reading Dostoevsky — what should we read into that?
Never place a loaded pistol onstage in the first act of a play, if it is not going to go off in a later act, Anton Chekhov famously declared. But what about placing a loaded book in a character’s hand in a television series if it is not going to go off by season’s end?…
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On his 121st birthday, four reasons to love Aaron Copland
On Aaron Copland’s birthday, I find myself wanting to listen to the opening minute of the composer’s sonata for violin and piano on a loop. Not that I don’t love the rest of the work, but the opening encapsulates just what I love about the best of his music: a simplicity and sincerity that carries…
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With the unveiling of a Jewish veteran’s headstone, another rare act of bravery
Last Sunday, I attended an extraordinary Zoom ceremony in Manchester, England, that marked the placement of a Star of David headstone in remembrance of a Jewish WWII veteran, Kurt Goldschlager, who had been buried under a cross. The military ceremony was led by Rabbi David Lewis and included a range of Jewish veterans in full…
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Paul Rudd is the Sexiest Man Alive. Take that, former winner Mel Gibson.
It’s a banner day for embarrassing Jewish dads everywhere. Paul Rudd, the eternally young and irrepressibly charming star of “Ant-Man” is People’s Sexiest Man Alive. As someone who has hosted a Rudd-O-Ween party (picture below), has intimate knowledge of Rudd’s contributions to the oeuvre of Tim and Eric and keeps a private ranking of the…
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Yiddish ווי פּאָעטן האָבן רעאַגירט אויף דער טרײַענגל שערטווייסט־פֿאַבריק־שׁריפֿה אין 1911How Yiddish poets reacted to the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire
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Culture I had a shot and rock ‘n’ roll fame — I chose a lifetime of Shabbat instead
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