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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Klingon Hanukkah and ‘Rugrats’ Purim — our wish list for Paramount+’s reboots
Mere weeks after a Super Bowl ad showed Jeff Probst, Dora the Explorer and DJ Khaled summiting a twisted Mount Olympus of mixed intellectual property, the forthcoming Paramount+ platform has announced more familiar faces coming to its streaming lineup. Because there is nothing new under the sun, we’ll be graced with a fresh take on…
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TikTok didn’t know Jews of color existed. This frum Black Jew is teaching them.
I met Tony Westbrookin Jerusalem, in 2016, when we both studied at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies. Tony was a large presence in the program; he was known for hosting beautiful, multi-course Shabbat meals and making soup to deliver to anyone in the program who got sick. Today, Tony is the Assistant Director of…
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In Tel Aviv, racial privilege gets a second look
We’ve seen this before. A street scene. A young man finds his stolen bike and calls the police. They ask him to find the thief and he thinks he does. Within minutes, the life of a Black person is destroyed. It could be cellphone footage from anywhere in America. But it happened in Israel. “White…
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Why Hamantashen are the most divisive cookies in the world
Hamantashen are divisive cookies. Named after the Purim story’s villain, Haman, the triangle confections are supposed to resemble either his hat or his ears, depending who you ask — and many consider the often dry and crumbly cookie about as appetizing. Defending their honor is even part of the famed Latke-Hamantash Debate. (The Forward staff…
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Is it kosher to smoke weed for Purim?
The Talmud (Megillah 7b to be exact) tells us to get — and I’m paraphrasing here — totally smashed on Purim, so intoxicated that we cannot tell the difference between the story’s villain, Haman, and the hero, Mordechai. But the Talmud doesn’t specify which intoxicants to consume. Could you, perhaps, smoke a blunt instead of…
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Why a slice of pizza holds the key to ’90s New York
David Shapiro’s madeleine, the nostalgic bite that transports him back in time and space, is a slice of pizza made by a guy named Andrew Bellucci circa 1995. Or maybe it’s a casserole, consumed in a StuyTown apartment building in 1973, part of a “reparation playdate” for when his schoolmate, Leeds Atkinson, called him a…
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The Jewish visionary who defended Allen Ginsberg and warned of Trump’s Trojan horse
The American poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who died on Feb. 22 at age 101, drew on Jewish culture and history for inspiration in celebratory odes and at times of tragedy. The Yonkers-born Ferlinghetti, whose mother, Clemence Mendes-Monsanto, was of Sephardic Jewish origin, was an avid painter in addition to his accomplishments as writer and editor. One…
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In a virtual Purim spiel, a Yiddish revival and a surprising antidote to Zoom culture
One year after the onset of the pandemic, most American theaters are languishing in the dark. But performers are still competing for our eyeballs through ever-more-sophisticated slates of virtual entertainment. Polished, highly-produced events in the vein of “Saturday Night Seder” have attempted to reproduce the intimacy and immediacy of live theater, lulling us via special…
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Woody Allen’s extraordinary violence, laid bare
“Allen v. Farrow,” HBO Max’s new four-part documentary about Dylan Farrow’s allegations of sexual assault against her adopted father, Woody Allen, has an almost soothing domestic aesthetic, full of long shots of rustic Connecticut homesteads and rippling lakes. But the series, which investigates the deep and constant violence experienced by survivors of abuse, is anything…
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On the delights of discovering a truly ‘essential’ Jewish book
The great Yiddish poet Avrom Sutzkever’s life resembled an epic novel — and along the way, he wrote soul-piercing prose and saw himself in it. “These stories are myself,” he wrote on the flyleaf of his second book of prose, though readers will feel this instinctively, without being told; this prose could not have been…
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The secret Jewish history of ‘Easy Rider’
Peter Fonda, who died in 2019, would have celebrated his 81st birthday today (February 23). Besides being a member of one of Hollywood’s most lauded family dynasties — his father was Henry Fonda, his older sister is Jane Fonda, and his daughter is Bridget Fonda — Peter Fonda is best remembered for his role in…
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