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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Music
The secret Jewish history of Judy Garland
Editor’s Note: Judy Garland, who was born on June 10, 1922, would have turned 99 today. We take that occasion to explore the many Jewish affinities and associations of her career. Although Judy Garland wasn’t Jewish, but several of her romantic partners were, including two of her five husbands. Many of her best-known songs were…
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Your Jewish guide to Pride 2021
We are officially in Pride Month, and this year, with the return of some in-person events, it feels particularly festive. Yes, we’re still not through with the pandemic, but in-person Pride Shabbatot on sunny beaches, special seminars and yes, even parades are back on. And there are also still plenty of virtual options, offering the…
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Does something Jewish flow through the ‘Spoon River Anthology?’
“Spoon River Anthology” (1915) by Edgar Lee Masters, a collection of autobiographical verse monologues in epitaph form, was named by Eliot Weinberger as the “century’s most influential book of American poetry” alongside T.S. Eliot’s “Waste Land.” A new book on Masters from University of Illinois Press is a good occasion for examining the neglected subject…
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‘Loki’ is Kafkaesque in a way we don’t usually see
In the first episode of “Loki,” the titular God of Mischief learns what Kafka proposed long ago: the world is controlled not by deities and strongmen, but by the soft totalitarianism of paper pushers. Trapped in the municipal-looking headquarters of the TVA (Time Variance Authority — any resemblance to DMV seems thuddingly intentional), Loki encounters…
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Books In Brooklyn’s hipster Williamsburg neighborhood, Hasidic Jews are the real counterculture
(JTA) — (New York Jewish Week via JTA) — Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood is known as a center of gentrification and a gathering place for the cool young hipsters of New York City. A short walk from the Lower East Side over the Williamsburg Bridge, it’s also home to one of the most concentrated Hasidic Jewish communities in…
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Books Feeling at home in my Yiddish-speaking bubble
The ten students in my Yiddish class are of differing political persuasions but we're united in our love of the language.
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Oregon has finally scrapped its racist state song — thanks to a Jewish music teacher
Most of us think of Oregon as a liberal bastion, home to hipster baristas and organic farmers, a conception encouraged by shows like “Portlandia.” But much of Oregon is truer to its historical roots as a “whites-only utopia” that forbade Black residents and displaced its native tribes. It’s therefore unsurprising that the Oregon state song’s…
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Did Irving Berlin appropriate or celebrate Black music — or both?
While considered one of the greatest American songwriter of all time, Irving Berlin has a problematic reputation among progressives. One reason is that his songs have a strong association with seemingly uncritical patriotism, particularly “God Bless America.” Another reason is that Berlin had a seemingly problematic relationship with Black music. With his wildly successful ragtime…
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Are more teens getting nose jobs — and is TikTok to blame?
Surgery transformation videos are a genre unto themselves on TikTok. Nearly always set to a mashup called “Celebrate the Good Times,” the videos count down to the big day, switching frames every few beats as the numbers tick away until the big reveal when the beat drops. Dance music crescendos and the creator, usually a…
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Why Tom Friedman is wrong — dangerously wrong — about Israel
It is astonishing to read a major newspaper assert that it is not necessary to understand the language someone speaks. “To understand the political drama playing out in Israel and the tentative formation of a national unity coalition to topple Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, you don’t need to speak Hebrew,” opinion columnist Thomas L. Friedman…
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Simone Biles’ GOAT leotard has a biblical precedent
Simone Biles is not being humble with her latest fashion statement — and who could blame her? The gymnast has 30 Olympic medals and continues to push her sport, and seemingly the laws of physics, to new heights. Because of her mastery, she has been called the GOAT, Greatest of All Time, and was recently…
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