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 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…
The Latest
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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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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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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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Does ‘Hallelujah’ explain Leonard Cohen? A new movie thinks so.
'Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song,' explains Leonard Cohen's life through his most famous work.
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What would Louis Brandeis do about Texas?
Nearly a century ago, the Supreme Court ruled that warrantless wiretapping, because a physical trespass did not occur, was not an unwarranted violation of an individual’s rights. The majority opinion, however, proved less influential than one of the dissenting ones. The framers of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, this associate justice affirmed, “sought to protect…
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November 8: Daniel Sokatch in conversation with Jodi Rudoren
This event is in partnership with Sixth & I. It will take place on Monday, November 8 at 7:30 p.m. ET / 4:30 p.m. PT. Register here. As an expert who understands both sides of one of the world’s most complex and controversial conflicts, New Israel Fund CEO Daniel Sokatch dives into why so many…
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The sound of thunder on a beautiful, cloudless day — a reporter’s memories of 9/11
‘An Ordinary Day’ It was nearly 11 p.m. when my plane landed on the runway at JFK. We’d left San Francisco an hour late and circled the airport in New York 45 minutes before finally touching down. And then, after coming to a stop, the plane sat and we waited. By the time I finally…
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‘After Rosh Hashanah dine and dance at Black Cat Club’: The High Holiday ads of yesteryear
For me, Rosh Hashanah has always served as the informal start to fall fashion. And so last year, as I facilitated Rosh Hashanah services on Zoom, I found myself oddly missing the smells of the synagogue sanctuary on Rosh Hashanah — a combination of new suits and musty tallises. So when I stumbled on a…
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