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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The secret Jewish history of the Chinese New Year
This year, the Chinese New Year falls on Friday, Feb. 12, the day when revelers — by some estimates, fully one-sixth of the earth’s population — will usher in the Year of the Ox. The day is observed throughout China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Singapore and some other Asian countries, as well as in Chinatowns around the…
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Stan Lee was his own favorite superhero – that was his downfall
True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee By Abraham Riesman Crown, 416 pages, $28 Where exactly did Stan Lee, the character and the person, come from? It depends what part of the man you’re looking for. One of Lee’s oft-repeated founding myths, evidence of the extreme self-love that made him the godhead of…
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Is pandemic dating making us all Orthodox?
It’s your first date. You’ve never met the other person, but they’ve been pre-screened and chosen for you, so you show up at the agreed-upon location, perhaps a park bench or hotel lobby. It’s daytime. You sit apart from each other, not close enough to touch or bump knees. Even though it’s the first date,…
The Latest
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Gina Carano should watch ‘The Mandalorian’ before she makes Holocaust analogies
Lucasfilm sacked actress Gina Carano from the “Star Wars” universe over a post likening hatred directed at people with differing politics to the treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany. The question naturally follows: Has she been paying any attention to the show that just canned her? To begin with, Carano, an outspoken Republican and featured…
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March 15: Rukhl Schaechter Joins Boulder Jewish Film Festival Panel
On March 15, at 7pm ET / 4pm PT, the editor of the Yiddish Forward, Rukhl Schaechter, will be joining a panel at the Boulder Jewish Film Festival about the remastered 1979 documentary, Yiddish: The Mother Tongue. The talk will be open to viewers of the film and will include documentary filmmaker Pierre Sauvage, novelist…
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With Jewish lawyers on each side, the impeachment trial feels Talmudic
No president has ever been impeached twice. Nor has a president ever been impeached after leaving office. This is a historic moment that raises a lot of questions — very precise constitutional questions whose answers have the power to set new precedents going forward. Interpreting the Constitution requires as much philosophical argument as law, and…
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Our big idea for how Steven Spielberg should spend his Genesis Prize money
Steven Spielberg’s Oscars are about to have some company. On Wednesday the Genesis Prize announced that the director behind such films as “Jaws” and “Schindler’s List” was selected for the “Jewish Nobel,” which comes with a $1 million prize. For the first time in its history, world Jewry was invited to vote on who would…
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Bald or Jewish — the Internet’s newest parlor game
During Tuesday’s impeachment trial, our Slack channels exploded. First, of course, it was David Schoen, Trump’s lawyer, covering his head with each sip of water he took. Was it a reflex? An Orthodox Jew trying to hold onto a phantom kippah? Or was it an attempt to cover his head, in lieu of a yarmulke?…
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The Jewish lawyer fighting against fake vanilla — and for 3-legged squirrels
In front of me is a bottle of vanilla seltzer. Its label states it was made with “natural flavors.” When I mention the brand to Spencer Sheehan, his voice jumps an octave. “Oh, I know that!” says Sheehan, 41, with a Long Island lilt. “Natural flavors technically will have a small amount of vanilla, but…
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20-Year-Old Jewish baseball phenom eyes stardom in Cleveland
Pitcher Josh Wolf, 20, was drafted by the New York Mets in 2019 as the 53rd pick-the highest ever from St. Thomas High School. He won the Michael Freedman Award for Outstanding Jewish Male High School Athlete of the Year from The Jewish Sports Heritage Association. The Texas native got a package of more than…
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That time Mary Wilson played a ‘Supreme Yenta’ on stage
Mary Wilson, who died on Feb. 8, 2021 at the age of 76, is being hailed throughout the world today for the musical legacy she leaves behind as a member of the Supremes, the female vocal trio that ruled the airwaves from the mid- to late-1960s, along the way bringing the R&B sounds of Detroit’s…
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