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 ‘Friends’ reunion didn’t have to be this weird
When I first heard “Friends” was going to have a reunion, I imagined a sappy, but nostalgic, episode of the gang all gathering, now with a gaggle of kiddos, to reminisce about their glory days in New York and kvetch about parenthood and growing old. Since it would clearly be a huge ratings hit, I…
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How Anna Halprin challenged stereotypes and biases through dance
Anna Halprin, the leading Jewish American dancer and choreographer and educator for generations of experimentalists in dance and theater, died May 24 at her home in Kentfield, California She was 100. Her daughter, Daria Halprin Khalighi, cited old age as the cause of death. Across the 80 years she taught and performed internationally and led…
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Eric Carle called this the strangest interpretation of ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’
On a busy Saturday, I was working the cash register at the Eric Carle Museum. I asked my customer, “Do you have a membership to the museum?” He was a friendly man with glasses and graying hair, “Yes, I do,” he said, “But I’ve never been to the museum before. I live in Minneapolis.” He…
The Latest
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Today’s Google Doodle has a Yiddish soundtrack
Today’s Google Doodle offers an interactive ode to swing dance — and a bisl Yiddish. Please let me explain. If you visit the search engine today, you’ll find an image of dancers in Harlem’s Savoy Ballroom, and, if you click, you’ll hear a jazzy instrumental version of the classic “Bay Mir Bistu Sheyn.” The tune,…
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In search of a story of Jewish Vienna, a daughter becomes a detective
Eva and Eve: A Search for My Mother’s Lost Childhood and What a War Left Behind By Julie Metz Atria Books, 320 pp, $28 Intended as satire, “The City Without Jews” ended up as prophecy. Published in 1922, the novel imagines an antisemitic Austrian government mobilizing hundreds of boxcars to deport all of Vienna’s Jews….
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Amazon’s plans to buy MGM recall the studio’s origins
Amazon has nabbed a lion in winter. The retail and entertainment giant announced Wednesday that it would acquire MGM, the storied movie studio for $8.5 billion, giving them the keys to franchises like James Bond and Rocky, and landing the flagging studio around $3 billion more than its valuation. If all this consolidation seems like…
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Can Sacha Baron Cohen be Borat and still tell the truth?
For a while now, Sacha Baron Cohen has had an issue with juggling multiple personas. On the one hand, as Borat, Bruno and his coterie of characters on “Who is America,” he is a cartoonish sounding board for America’s worst qualities. On the other, he is an increasingly serious out-of-character activist, a full-throated opponent of…
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The Jewish jokes from ‘Friends’ have aged poorly — so has the rest of the show
I grew up in one of those households without cable, a PBS-only child. “Friends” was a show I dreamed of being old enough to be allowed to watch; it felt like the most hip, adult network sitcom. In my teens, I watched it all on DVDs ordered one by one from Netflix, if you remember…
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What if we could resolve generational trauma through…a Holocaust video game?
When I first heard about a new documentary, “Tacheles,” which follows a group of Germans designing a video game about the Holocaust, in which “Jews can defend themselves and Nazis can act humanely,” I thought it sounded like a recipe for disaster. At best, it seemed like a poorly thought-through attempt at catharsis; at worst,…
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The secret Jewish history of ‘The Goon Show’
May 28 marks the 70th anniversary of the influential British radio comedy program “The Goon Show,” which inspired fans from the Monty Python group to John Lennon. The Jewish content of The Goons, comprising comedians Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers as well as the Welsh singer Harry Secombe, is usually overlooked amid the show’s comedic…
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Music How Jewish is Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah?’
A Forward investigation in 9 verses
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