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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October 6: The Boston Festival of New Jewish Music 1.1. Zach Mayer CD Release
This event is in partnership with the Boston Festival of New Jewish Music. It will take place on Wednesday, October 6 at 7 p.m. ET / 4 p.m. PT. Register here. We’re excited to partner with the Boston Synagogue on the launch of the Boston Festival of New Jewish Music, a free monthly concert series…
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They believe Jesus died for their sins — so why do some Christians observe Yom Kippur?
Last Passover, Jewish Twitter erupted over Christian Seders. Now, Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, is joining the Christianity club, and Jwitter is just as upset. Christians observing Yom Kippur isn’t exactly new, but it does seem to be increasingly widespread. This time, the discourse seems to have started in large part…
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Bless the moon? The case for Yom Kippur’s hardest mitzvah
This year, say yes to Kiddush Levana.
The Latest
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How one Jewish prayer helped to heal a distinctly non-Jewish community
The first time I heard “Avinu Malkeinu,” I was at the top of Arthur’s Seat, a dead volcano in the center of the city of Edinburgh, Scotland. The climb to the top and back is 2 miles. It was earlier this year, sometime in June. In the wake of the COVID outbreak during the previous…
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November 4-11: Other Israel Film Festival
The Other Israel Film Festival will run November 4-11. Learn more and get tickets here. We’re excited to co-sponsor the 2021 Other Israel Film Festival! Tickets are now on sale and this year’s festival will feature both in-person and virtual films and events. The Other Israel Film Festival, founded in 2007, presents cinema and television…
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How Arnold Schoenberg changed my life (and might even change yours too)
I’m a high school music student. I sit, barely twitching, as a foreign-sounding, abrasive, downright unpleasant mash of sounds unfolds around me; they pelt me and the rest of the innocent audience for what seems like days. At the end of the performance, I feel emotionally withered but intellectually somehow proud, having made it through…
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November 7: What If? Ehud Barak on War and Peace screening and Q&A
This film screening and Q&A will take place on Sunday, November 7 at 2 p.m. ET. Get tickets here. Can a leader succeed in influencing the world? Ehud Barak is a controversial former prime minister, decorated and criticized commander on the battlefield, and one of the leading figures of the Zionist movement. He is also…
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Deep in the woods, where a terrifying real-life Holocaust fairy tale unfolded
Into the Forest: A Holocaust Story of Survival, Triumph, and Love By Rebecca Frankel St. Martin’s Press, 352 pages, $28.99 In fairy tales, the woods are a place of enchantment, a dark realm whose surprises can quickly turn sinister. For the embattled Jews of Poland, fleeing Nazi genocide, they were a refuge that was also…
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Music Why a 17-year-old Israeli virtuoso is already winning comparisons to the greatest pianists of all time
Born in 2004, the Israeli pianist Yoav Levanon has just signed an exclusive contract with Warner Classics. This is only the latest achievement in a career that already includes winning the National Piano Competition in Israel at age five, followed by a debut with the Israel Chamber Orchestra at age seven. Levanon is a native…
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Francine Prose would like to return to eavesdropping on strangers
Francine Prose has written 22 novels. But a few minutes into our interview, we were talking about a very different accomplishment. Every morning, she does the New York Times Spelling Bee. And every morning (OK, almost every morning), she reaches the coveted “Genius” level. “This is going to be my one big boast of our…
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How to feel the staggering awesomeness of the Days of Awe (a little German philosophy can help)
A few years ago, a colleague asked me what makes the High Holidays so high. “Well,” I replied, “they are awesome days.” “Sounds like a slacker’s line in a Linklater film,” she laughed. “You know, D-A-Z-E of Awe.” I smiled, but uneasily. During the one Jewish holiday that, above all others, demands reverence, the joke…
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