Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of Jewish culture. Here, you’ll learn about the latest (and sometimes earliest) in Jewish art, music, film, theater, books as well as the secret Jewish history of everything and everyone from The Rolling Stones to…
Culture
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On the northwest side of Chicago, my old Jewish neighborhood may soon live on in infamy
Albany Park was home to Rosenblum's Bookstore, Weinberg's Clothing — and also alleged DC shooter Elias Rodriguez
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Watch out, Hamilton. Janet Yellen’s coming for your hip-hop cred
Newly-minted Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is already a less problematic fave than Alexander Hamilton, an adulterer, elitist social climber and — despite Lin-Manuel Miranda’s protestations — a possible slave owner. But does a song about her slap? We now know: Yes. About a week ago, Marketplace, inspired by an off-handed remark from Joe Biden, asked…
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For Mozart’s 265th birthday, remembering his great Jewish collaborator
This story, initially published in October, 2018, has been republished in honor of Mozart’s 265th birthday on Jan. 27, 2021. The librettist Lorenzo da Ponte — an exiled Jewish-born Venetian who turned to the arts after proving too irreverent for the Church — had a lot in common with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The two shared…
The Latest
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Holocaust survivors are now receiving their first doses of the vaccine — and fame
Elderly Holocaust survivors are among the most susceptible to the current pandemic; 900 died of Covid in Israel alone. That is why it was heartening to see, on Twitter, one 97-year-old Holocaust survivor grinning because she had just beaten Covid, and another smiling after receiving her first dose of the vaccine. My 97-Year-old Great Grandma,…
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If you can guess how HBO’s ‘Possessions’ ends, I’m scared of you
I’m reasonably confident you won’t be quick to solve the murder mystery at the heart of “Possessions.” If you do work out the exact whys and wherefores — before, say, episode four of six — I’m more than a bit worried about you. Debuting on HBO Max on Thursday, the French and Hebrew language thriller…
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Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’ final book wins big at National Jewish Book Awards
The National Jewish Book Awards selected the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’ “Morality: Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times” as the most notable Jewish book of 2020. Sacks, a prolific author and a leader in modern Jewish thought, has won several prizes at the awards program, which the Jewish Book Council has operated since 1950….
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How a penniless immigrant named Igor skyrocketed to Broadway and Hollywood fame
Mike Nichols: A Life By Mark Harris Penguin Press, 688 pages, $29.99 After six days on the S.S. Bremen in 1939, the little Berliner fleeing the Third Reich disembarked in New York. Igor Michael Peschowsky was seven, “a self-contained, unsmiling child,” and bald as an egg – the unexpected result of a whooping-cough vaccine. At…
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How celebrated illustrator Peter Sís found a Holocaust hero in his own backyard
The day after Donald Trump won the 2016 election, the author and illustrator Peter Sís met with his editor to discuss a new book. The former president’s rise was already drawing comparisons to the crises of the 20th century. Still, Sís couldn’t have predicted that he would finish his latest work, a children’s tale of…
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Art An artist in exile talks Tu B’Shvat tarot and working from her childhood home
During the pandemic, Jessica Tamar Deutsch has been considering exile as she relearns how to paint. Specifically, she’s been thinking about the title character in “The Lost Princess,” a story by Rabbi Nachman, the mystic founder of the Breslov Hasidic movement, about a young woman who disappears from her home after displeasing her kingly father….
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She didn’t go to Hebrew school, but she she made an extremely accurate movie about it — a conversation with Olivia Peace
The most important scenes in “Tahara” take place where the best shul drama goes down: the ladies’ lounge. Possibly the most important amenity a synagogue can offer, the ladies’ lounge features way too many wicker baskets, a selection of castoff artwork incorporating the phrase “tikkun olam” and a well-worn couch conducive to dawdling and dishing…
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Meet Jon Ossoff’s Jewish predecessors from the South
Jon Ossoff is the first Jew to be elected to the Senate from the Deep South since before the Reconstruction. But who were these Civil War era Jews who came before him? They’re so far in the past, I was surprised to hear there had ever been a Jewish senator from the South; I had…
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How winning a Nobel Prize helped me to find my roots
I was hiking deep in the woods near Czestochowa, Poland, and beginning to worry that our guide had gotten us lost. I was accompanied by my wife Lynn, my cousins Ellen and Judy, and Judy’s husband, Ivan. Supposedly, we were looking for my family’s roots, but I doubted we were going to find them this…
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Culture On the northwest side of Chicago, my old Jewish neighborhood may soon live on in infamy
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Opinion The two things I fear most after the horrifying attack on Jews in Boulder
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Opinion Pete Hegseth is targeting a Jewish American hero — who’s next?
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Fast Forward Ye debuts ‘Heil Hitler’ music video that includes a sample of a Hitler speech
In Case You Missed It
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Fast Forward Zohran Mamdani once said mayoral candidates should pledge to boycott Israel. Now that he’s running, he’s not so forthcoming.
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News CAMERA, pro-Israel media watchdog, fires longtime CEO, spurring public acrimony
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Yiddish אַ קורס וועגן די ייִדישע דיאַלעקטן אינעם אַלטן ייִשובֿA course about the Yiddish dialects of the ‘Old Yishuv’
דער ירושלימער ייִדיש שטאַמט פֿון ליטוויש ייִדיש בעת דער צפֿתער ייִדיש שטאַמט פֿון אוקראַיִניש ייִדיש.
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Opinion Don’t be grateful two hostages’ bodies were recovered. Be furious.
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