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
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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
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The Jewish story that ‘Son of the South’ left on the cutting room floor
MONTGOMERY, Alabama — The funniest line in the true-life story behind the Spike Lee-executive produced Civil Rights movement biopic, “Son of the South,” is in Yiddish. But it didn’t make the final cut. That’s because the Jewish half of what could have been a hilarious-yet-gripping buddy film was largely written out. In real life, the…
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Books This nonagenarian knows more about the cellphone than you — because he invented it
After working from home for over a year, I still have no idea how Zoom backgrounds work, which means the various strangers I interview can look past me to see my ailing succulents, unopened prestige cookbooks and a childhood’s worth of participation trophies. Unlike me, a supposed “digital native,” Martin Cooper is old enough that…
The Latest
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Joe Manchin’s filibuster-sized Talmudic trolley problem — and ours
Last week, the GOP may have filibustered the future of American democracy. Senate Republicans used this parliamentary tactic to prevent the creation of an independent commission to investigate the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection. When the vote fell short of 60 — the threshold needed to pass the measure — the Democratic senator from West Virginia,…
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Did Chuck Woolery just have a ‘Hitler was right’ moment?
Chuck Woolery, the arch-conservative game show host and catheter pitchman was slammed on Twitter for appearing to take an “enemy of my enemy is my friend” approach to… Hitler? In a Memorial Day post, Woolery tweeted “Critical Race theory is based on Critical theory, given to the world by Marxists from the Frankfort School [sic]…
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From the confinement of a ‘ghetto,’ the liberation of great art
The other day, I looked up the word “ghetto” in the online Urban Dictionary, in order to get a sense of how the word is being used in the vernacular these days. While the definition provided there is problematic and poorly written, I was struck, however, by the very first sentence: “When someone is to…
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The secret Jewish history of ‘The Love Boat’
In light of the May 29 death of actor Gavin MacLeod, celebrated for portraying Captain Merrill Stubing on ABC-TV’s “The Love Boat,” it seems like a good time to take a deeper look into the Jewish elements in the hit show, which ran from 1977 to 1986, followed by further special episodes until 1990. Executive…
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The Tulsa massacre wasn’t a ‘race riot’ — it was a pogrom
One hundred years ago, a pogrom destroyed a community. A pogrom is, according to John Klier, who was the subject’s leading authority and author of numerous seminal studies on Russian Jews, “an outbreak of mass violence directed against a minority religious, ethnic or social group. It usually implies central instigation and control, or at minimum…
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Books Why do we keep turning Holocaust survivor stories into self-help books?
On a recent segment of “The Today Show,” a cadre of well-coiffed hosts discussed the life of Eddie Jaku, a 100-year-old Holocaust survivor and the author of “The Happiest Man on Earth,” a memoir about his imprisonment in Auschwitz. Grainy photos of concentration camp prisoners alternated with clips from an interview with Jaku and videos…
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The year that I’ll remember, the year my grandfather won’t
Around this time last year, I held my grandpa’s hand in the ER of a New York City hospital. Half-drawn curtains formed alcoves that revealed slivers of the patients nearby — faces, an arm. I looked from one to the other. They were alone. They seemed to be asleep. They were hooked up to machines…
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Here’s a bad idea: What if Disney’s ‘Homeward Bound’ was about the Holocaust?
Animal characters have been used powerfully in Holocaust stories — think Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer-winning graphic novel “Maus.” So even though the newest addition to the Holocaust canon, Lynn Roth’s movie “Shepherd: The Story of a Jewish Dog,” might initially raise your hackles, it seems promising. It’s based on an award-winning book, “The Jewish Dog,” by…
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The Tony-winning drama of the Oslo Accords is now a film
J.T. Rogers and Bartlett Sher always knew their history play had a lot to teach us today. But they never wanted it to be quite this relevant. “When we first did the piece, that was 2016, and as much as it was about Palestine and Israel, it was really about Republicans and Democrats,” said Sher,…
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News Exclusive: ADL chief compares student protesters to ISIS and al-Qaeda in address to Republican officials
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News A Jewish farmer drove 600 miles to rescue a century-old synagogue. Now he’s building a new one in a cornfield.
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Opinion Pete Hegseth is targeting a Jewish American hero — who’s next?
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Opinion The two things I fear most after the horrifying attack on Jews in Boulder
In Case You Missed It
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Yiddish אַ טור פֿון דער אויסשטעלונג „מגילת־אסתּר אין דער רעמבראַנדט־תּקופֿה“ — אויף ייִדיש!A tour of “The Book of Esther in the Age of Rembrandt” exhibit — in Yiddish!
אין דער אויסשטעלונג געפֿינען זיך 120 מאָלערײַען פֿון דער פּורים־העלדין, געמאָלט פֿון די האָלענדישע קונסטמײַסטערס.
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Fast Forward NYC Mayor Adams pushes controversial antisemitism definition as issue dominates mayoral election
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Opinion If Trump is being compared to Hitler, who was Hitler before he was Hitler?
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Culture Aaron Lansky built a home for 1.5 million Yiddish books. Now he’s handing over the keys.
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