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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Shrimp in your Cinnamon Toast Crunch? Your cereal might still be kosher
Cinnamon sugar-crusted shrimp sounds like a questionable appetizer at a haute-cuisine restaurant — you know, the same kind of food trend that gave us everything bagel ice cream. Instead, the shellfish in question came out of a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal, into the bowl of Twitter user and comedian Jensen Karp, whose tweet…
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Note to Georgia politicians: Sunday isn’t the Sabbath
Georgia Republicans recently passed a bill to eliminate early voting on Sunday. “I’d like one of the Republican members on this committee to give us a plain sense justification for that restriction,” demanded Sen. Chuck Schumer in a meeting of the Senate Rules and Administration committee; voting remains legal Monday-Saturday. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, of Mississippi,…
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Up for sale: Letters from Lenny Bruce and Charles Manson, a Disneyland orgy and the story of a generation
The political upheaval of the 1960s is certainly having a moment in Hollywood. Among the films up for the best picture Oscar are “Judas and the Black Messiah” and “The Trial of the Chicago 7.” And, of course, Best Supporting Actor nominations went to Daniel Kaluuya for his portrayal of the murdered Black Panther Fred…
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A guide to the Forverts archival coverage of the Triangle Fire
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire was one of the worst industrial tragedies in America. On the eve of its 110th anniversary, read reporting published in the Yiddish-language Forverts in the aftermath of the deadly fire. Articles were translated by Chana Pollack, Ezra Glinter and Myra Mniewski. March 26, 1911 Our Ghastly Devastation One day after…
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Your 2021 guide to virtual Passover seders
While the COVID-19 vaccine rollout and loosened restrictions on gatherings will allow some families, friends, and congregations to be together this Passover, the majority of us are preparing for yet another pandemic Passover. Last year, Jewish communities around the country came together virtually to celebrate the holiday, the first of what would become a full…
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On Houdini’s 147th birthday, the incredible stories you never heard
Writer’s Note: Today would have been Harry Houdini’s 147th birthday. At least we think so — he always said he was born April 6, possibly out of ignorance of the true date. It’s one more bit of dissembling from a man notorious for invented biography. In honor of the occasion, we are reprinting this piece…
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George Segal brought Jewishness to the screen — even when he was playing non-Jews
George Segal, who died on Mar. 23 at age 87, had a singular screen impact as an explicitly and implicitly Jewish actor starting in the 1960s. Remembered best by younger audiences for delivering sitcom lines at rapid fire tempo in the series “Just Shoot Me!” (1997–2003) and “The Goldbergs” (2013–2021), Segal was an infinitely more…
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Almost 900 pages about Philip Roth — and yet the crucial part goes missing
Philip Roth, The Biography By Blake Bailey Norton, 896 pages $40 Philip Roth. Love him or hate him. Me? I loved him. As is the case for many Jewish American novelists, his work informed mine in countless ways. Also, I worked in the twilight of the New York publishing era Roth came up in. Though…
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If you’re looking for a Passover anthem, this is…not it
If you haven’t heard of Trisha Paytas, I recommend you stop reading here and continue on in blissful ignorance. If you follow the ever-controversial Youtube-TikTok-social media figure, you will be unsurprised by her new music video release. Titled “I Love You Moses,” it is part Passover banger and part love song to her Israeli fiancé,…
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As in ‘Fiddler on the Roof,’ small disasters foretell the destruction of a world
The Slaughterman’s Daughter By Yaniv Iczkovits; translated from the Hebrew by Orr Scharf Schocken Books, 515 pages, $28.99 As history, family lore, and Yiddish fiction all attest, the 19th-century Russian Empire held numerous dangers for Jews in the Pale of Settlement: grinding poverty, pogroms, conscription into the Czar’s army. Sholem Aleichem’s folkloric stories mined this…
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‘Why We Need You, Molly Picon’ — a poem
WHY WE NEED YOU, MOLLY PICON Because you were born two years before the birth of the twentieth century and your mother sewed for the theater, because your father was too brilliant to work, blamed your mother for his two girls, so he moved out, because you caught the eye of a drunk on a…
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Fast Forward French police detain Palestinian man who allegedly struck rabbi with a chair
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