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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For Your Eyes Only: A casting memo for Jewish James Bonds
Relax on the speculation, everyone. Even you, The Onion. Bond producer Barbara Broccoli announced that she is allowing Daniel Craig a one-year valedictory period before the search commences for a new 007 in 2022. Fittingly, that means the casting department at MGM needs to wait till the end of shmita to replace the legendary spy,…
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SNL taps spooky, subversive Jewish comedian Sarah Sherman
What’s the best way to get a featured player spot on SNL? For new cast member Sarah Sherman, the secret sauce was posting an unsolicited audition tape, where, pinky raised to the corner of her mouth like Dr. Evil, she did impressions of everyone from Donald Trump to the infernal “Little Lad” from that one…
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Jonathan Franzen’s latest novel is a religious experience — radically so
Over the span of five novels, dropped every five years or so like stepping stones into the river of our national zeitgeist, Jonathan Franzen has taught his readers what to expect from him. His mode is so consistent that it’s become a brand: the granular depiction of domestic life filtered, via happenstance and the mechanics…
The Latest
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The small storefront window disrupting the Jewish art world
Even during the height of lockdowns, one art gallery was open. No, it wasn’t flouting Toronto’s strict regulations, which have kept museums closed for most of the year; FENTSTER, a gallery located in a storefront window in Toronto, was simply doing what it has always done, putting art right onto the street — it was…
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Tobi Kahn marks a new Jewish ritual — with a new piece of art
What does tikkun olam look like? On Yom HaTzedek, a new holiday that falls on Pesach Sheni, it looks like a box. For Tobi Kahn, the renowned painter and sculptor, that box looks like a city awash in deep blue, its interior reflecting the heavens, its slot like a mailbox to God. On a Wednesday…
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My fleeting love affair with NPR’S Ophira Eisenberg
Editor’s note: Some nine years after its debut, NPR’s “Ask Me Another” has come to an end. In 2016, the Forward’s Talya Zax profiled Ophira Eisenberg, the show’s host. In honor of the show’s conclusion, we’ve republished that profile. Hectic strains of unidentifiable indie rock drift over the audience. Mostly white and mostly well-dressed, they…
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Just as a Jewish humanist told us in ‘Foundation,’ our problems will be over in 10,000 years
No one can remember a time when we were more politically polarized. Discussions of immigration, foreign policy and COVID all generate, as they say, more heat than light. But as we cast around for ideas on how to handle difficult topics such as whether to mandate masks and vaccines, maybe we should look to Hari…
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How Bob Dylan’s greatest song changed music history — a deep-dive into an accidental masterpiece
'Like a Rolling Stone' is a religious experience
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The gorgeous desperation of Tony Curtis — an actor who never played it straight
Long after he became rich and famous, he had a lean and hungry look. This look was his greatest gift as a performer. Few matinee idols played so many desperate men, and none was better at conveying a trembling, clenched-jaw desperation. His nastiest characters are ruthless; even the nice ones have, as the kids say,…
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William Shatner may be going to space (please alert space)
Rocket Man indeed. William Shatner, abusive Twitter gadfly and erstwhile Starfleet captain will go to space on Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin per a TMZ report. If true, Shatner, 90, some few decades older than the cast of “Space Cowboys,” would be the oldest man ever to go to space. (Unless we count the ancient David…
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Film & TV How Ingmar Bergman’s ‘Scenes From a Marriage’ converted to Judaism
Israeli director-writer Hagai Levi is the creative force behind such major international successes as “In Treatment” and “The Affair.” His latest project, currently airing on HBO, is a five-part reimagining of Ingmar Bergman’s “Scenes From a Marriage,” the seminal 1973 Swedish miniseries about the slow but inexorable disintegration of a marriage. Levi’s version is intense,…
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