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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On TikTok, she offers a spicy daily take on Talmud
A non-Orthodox woman with bleach-blonde hair, Anzovin might not look like what most people conjure when asked to think of someone who studies Talmud
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Sexy, vibrant and daring, this is not your typical Jewish film festival fare
In the annals of Jewish film festivals, “Sin La Habana” is likely the only entry to begin with a Santeria ritual involving the sacrifice of chickens. Sadly, the film, playing as part of New York’s Jewish Film Festival Jan. 15, is also one of a select few to spotlight a Mizrahi bris. The feature debut…
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Would the Jewish writer of ‘Mr. Smith Goes to Washington’ support filibuster reform?
When Ted Cruz read “Green Eggs and Ham” to protest Obamacare, he was probably thinking of Jimmy Stewart. The divisive tradition of the filibuster, which Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is now hoping to bypass to bring voting rights to the floor, was never so memorably committed to film as in Frank Capra’s 1939 film…
The Latest
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In an overlooked comic from the early 1970s, the most Jewish superhero story ever told
“Eternals,” a movie based on a Marvel comic about immortal agents of giant space gods, arrived on Disney+ Jan. 12. The “Absolute Fourth World by Jack Kirby Vol. 2” comes out Jan. 18. It’s an omnibus collection of DC Comics’ sprawling saga about warring alien gods. Though these comics are by rival companies, they’re actually…
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How the U.S. wined and dined Nazis, then destroyed the evidence, in Netflix doc
In the wake of World War II, the world united in an attempt to bring top Nazi officials to justice. Though many attempted to flee, they were hunted down; some were assassinated by Mossad, and others were prosecuted in military tribunals and widely-publicized hearings such as the Nuremberg Trials. Those who evaded capture remained the…
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Why did this astonishing document of Nazi atrocities vanish for more than 50 years?
“The Lost Film of Nuremberg,” which will premiere at New York’s Jewish Film Festival Jan. 13, uncovers a real-life history more unsettling than any saga Hollywood could manufacture. At its center of the documentary, directed by Jean-Christophe Klotz, is an enigma: How could a film made for and from the historical record become missing from…
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How forgetting the Holocaust helped Germany thrive after the war
Aftermath: Life in the Fallout of the Third Reich, 1945-55 By Harald Jähner; translated from the German by Shaun Whiteside Alfred A. Knopf, 394 pages, $30 The original German edition of Harald Jähner’s “Aftermath” was titled, more evocatively, “Wolfszeit,” meaning “time of the wolves.” The expression encapsulates the Hobbesian ferocity of the immediate post-World War…
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He was Jewish and one of the 20th century’s greatest writers — but was he a Jewish writer?
For those already familiar with the work of Nelson Algren, best known for his 1949 novel, “The Man with the Golden Arm,” which starred Frank Sinatra in the iconic film version, Michael Caplan’s documentary, “Algren,” is an engaging tribute to a writer who championed the lives of hookers, hustlers and addicts who found solace in…
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Jewish photographer behind iconic Pulitzer-winning images hangs up his lens
If there’s a definitive Pulitzer Prize-winning photo, it’s “The Soiling of Old Glory” — Stanley Forman’s spot news winner for the Boston Herald American in 1976. In it, a youth turns an American flag into a weapon to use against a Black man at a school busing protest. Then again, make that two definitive photos:…
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Film & TV On the border of Turkey and Syria, a Jewish family desperate to flee a rapidly-changing world
Swiss-Kurdish director Mano Khalil’s “Neighbours” is a cinematically stunning, deeply unsettling film that is at once brutal and satiric, and at moments even magical. The central figure is six-year-old Sero (Serhed Khalil) and the story is seen through his trusting and innocent eyes. Loosely inspired by the director’s own childhood experiences, the movie, with its…
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Wordle’s massively popular (Jewish) predecessors
Writer’s note: After an outpouring of love for the word game Jotto, this article has been updated. If you are one of the countless smartphone users currently beguiled by a five by six grid of letters, you may be interested to know about Wordle’s Jewish precursors. Before Twitter was lit up by rows of gray,…
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