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 a search for family heritage in Poland — via a virtual Jewish tour
I was looking for my roots, for a connection to my heritage. My late father was a Holocaust survivor and I was investigating his life before the Nazi invasion, when the pandemic closed many archives down. But I kept researching online and when Europe started opening up again in the spring, I arranged for us…
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Remembering Walter Kissinger — Henry’s menschy and self-effacing brother
News of the demise of Walter Kissinger, who died May 3 at age 96, was made public discreetly and belatedly, matching the relatively reserved persona with which he went through life as the less attention-grabbing younger brother of the American Jewish politician Henry Kissinger. Despite his own achievements in business and philanthropy as what Fortune…
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How do I love Orchard Beach? Let me count the ways!
A middle-aged man, dressed for summer, exits his parked car and approached a group of people, four of whom sit on folding chairs around a portable bridge table, playing dominos. On any given day, during the warmer, offseason months, groups of fun-seekers occupy the better part of the eastern section of the Orchard Beach parking…
The Latest
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The ‘Friends’ reunion didn’t have to be this weird
When I first heard “Friends” was going to have a reunion, I imagined a sappy, but nostalgic, episode of the gang all gathering, now with a gaggle of kiddos, to reminisce about their glory days in New York and kvetch about parenthood and growing old. Since it would clearly be a huge ratings hit, I…
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How Anna Halprin challenged stereotypes and biases through dance
Anna Halprin, the leading Jewish American dancer and choreographer and educator for generations of experimentalists in dance and theater, died May 24 at her home in Kentfield, California She was 100. Her daughter, Daria Halprin Khalighi, cited old age as the cause of death. Across the 80 years she taught and performed internationally and led…
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Eric Carle called this the strangest interpretation of ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’
On a busy Saturday, I was working the cash register at the Eric Carle Museum. I asked my customer, “Do you have a membership to the museum?” He was a friendly man with glasses and graying hair, “Yes, I do,” he said, “But I’ve never been to the museum before. I live in Minneapolis.” He…
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Today’s Google Doodle has a Yiddish soundtrack
Today’s Google Doodle offers an interactive ode to swing dance — and a bisl Yiddish. Please let me explain. If you visit the search engine today, you’ll find an image of dancers in Harlem’s Savoy Ballroom, and, if you click, you’ll hear a jazzy instrumental version of the classic “Bay Mir Bistu Sheyn.” The tune,…
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In search of a story of Jewish Vienna, a daughter becomes a detective
Eva and Eve: A Search for My Mother’s Lost Childhood and What a War Left Behind By Julie Metz Atria Books, 320 pp, $28 Intended as satire, “The City Without Jews” ended up as prophecy. Published in 1922, the novel imagines an antisemitic Austrian government mobilizing hundreds of boxcars to deport all of Vienna’s Jews….
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Amazon’s plans to buy MGM recall the studio’s origins
Amazon has nabbed a lion in winter. The retail and entertainment giant announced Wednesday that it would acquire MGM, the storied movie studio for $8.5 billion, giving them the keys to franchises like James Bond and Rocky, and landing the flagging studio around $3 billion more than its valuation. If all this consolidation seems like…
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Can Sacha Baron Cohen be Borat and still tell the truth?
For a while now, Sacha Baron Cohen has had an issue with juggling multiple personas. On the one hand, as Borat, Bruno and his coterie of characters on “Who is America,” he is a cartoonish sounding board for America’s worst qualities. On the other, he is an increasingly serious out-of-character activist, a full-throated opponent of…
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The Jewish jokes from ‘Friends’ have aged poorly — so has the rest of the show
I grew up in one of those households without cable, a PBS-only child. “Friends” was a show I dreamed of being old enough to be allowed to watch; it felt like the most hip, adult network sitcom. In my teens, I watched it all on DVDs ordered one by one from Netflix, if you remember…
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Film & TV The new ‘Superman’ is being called anti-Israel, but does that make it pro-Palestine?
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Music ‘No matter what, I will always be a Jew.’ Billy Joel opens up about his family’s Holocaust history
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Fast Forward How the Jewish commandment to ‘be fruitful and multiply’ could help a woman challenge Kentucky’s abortion ban in court
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Yiddish ווידעאָ: יוטוב־פּערזענלעכקייט רעדט אויף ייִדיש וועגן אַ משפּחה־טראַגעדיעVIDEO: Youtube personality speaks in Yiddish about a tragedy in the family
מאַטי מענדלאָוויטשעס ברודער, וואָס האָט יאָרן לאַנג געליטן פֿון דעפּרעסיע, האָט הײַיאָר זיך גענומען דאָס לעבן. .
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