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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How an antisemite like Baudelaire influenced generations of Jewish writers
According to researcher Brett Bowles, Charles Baudelaire, who was born 200 years ago April 9, 1821, was a raging antisemite. In an article from 2000, Bowles noted that in “My Heart Laid Bare” (Mon cœur mis à nu), a posthumously published book of fragmentary observations, the author of the collection “The Flowers of Evil” declared:…
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WATCH: An exclusive trailer for ‘Upheaval,’ the story of Menachem Begin
Menachem Begin’s legacy beggars belief. The former Prime Minister of Israel survived the Shoah and Soviet Gulags. He headed the Irgun, leading the British to label him a terrorist. His critics, including Jimmy Carter, believed him to be a war monger. And yet he won the Nobel Peace Prize, with Carter, for the Camp David…
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Ady Barkan will not go quietly
I challenge you to see Nicholas Bruckman’s new movie about Ady Barkan and not cry. Actually, go ahead: watch and weep. The challenge was not yours, after all, but nominally mine as a reviewer of “Not Going Quietly.” A review assignment generally means trying to keep some critical distance from the cultural product so one…
The Latest
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May 10: LGBTQ discrimination at Yeshiva University
This talk will take place on Monday, May 10 at 3 p.m. ET / 12 p.m. PT Watch on Facebook Live here. Last week, recent alumni filed a lawsuit against Yeshiva University, alleging a pattern of discrimination against LGBTQ students at the premier Modern Orthodox institution. Read our investigation here and join us for a…
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How to say kaddish for Bernie Madoff
When Alicia Jo Rabins wrote “A Kaddish for Bernie Madoff,” she had no idea it would come out the year Bernie Madoff actually died. “Wow. It’s an odd experience to have my phone blowing up because someone I’ve never met died in his 80s!” she said when I emailed her today. Though the kaddish prayer…
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When George Costanza lost it all to Bernie Madoff
It was more than a great idea. It was more than a couple million dollars. Of the many victims of Bernard L. Madoff, the Ponzi scheme mastermind who died in prison April 14, was a visionary entrepreneur: George Costanza, whose app, iToilet, directed its user via global positioning technology to the nearest acceptable public toilet…
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Forgotten until now, these female resistance fighters lured Hitler’s soldiers to their deaths
More than a decade ago, Judy Batalion accidentally stumbled upon a Yiddish-language book in the British Library. Published in 1946, the book comprised a collection of memoirs of “ghetto girls,” young Jewish women who revolted against the Nazis in Poland. These women tricked the Gestapo into carrying their luggage filled with contraband, hid revolvers in…
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May 12: Surveying American Jewry
This talk will take place on Wednesday, May 12 at 3:30 p.m. ET / 12:30 p.m. PT Watch on Facebook Live here. Forward reporter Arno Rosenfeld will interview Alan Cooperman from Pew Research Center about the Center’s new report. Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes…
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Books They couldn’t find any books on Ashkenazi herbs — so they wrote one
Deatra Cohen was studying to become an herbalist when her teacher assigned what seemed like a straightforward task: researching and reporting on the herbal cures and practices of her own culture. But the project was anything but simple. A retired librarian, Cohen was adept at navigating databases and combing through archives. But she could find…
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How Judd Legum accomplished what millions couldn’t
The famous story goes that in the 1970s, while teaching political science at the University of Louisville, Mitch McConnell made a chalkboard list of three requirements for success in politics: money, money and money. His critics therefore rejoiced when companies began pledging to withhold their money from Republicans who voted to overturn the presidential election….
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How a Jewish filmmaker chronicled an indigenous woman’s historic run for Mexican president
There are no voiceovers in the new Mexican documentary “The Spokeswoman.” No talking heads, no academic commentators, no political analysts, no institutionally accredited experts, and no directorial flourishes in the form of sweeping sound cues or flashy cuts. With very few exceptions, the only voices one hears are those of the men and the women,…
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