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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Film & TV
Can we separate Roman Polanski’s excellent new film from its director’s contemptible past?
“An Officer and a Spy,” Roman Polanski’s 2019 movie about the Dreyfus Affair, is spare, modern and steeped in controversy. If it weren’t for the horses and high boots, you’d forget you’re watching the past. If it weren’t for the fact that Polanski directed it, you would have seen it by now. The movie does…
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The pros and cons of having a Jewish dog mom
Lucky you! The pandemic has spurred dog adoption to an all-time high. There’s likely just a few of you still hanging around. So take this time to be picky. I wasn’t as lucky. It took me weeks to coax someone to choose me. You see, I was transported from the South by van, and brought…
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The super-nerdy reason ‘Wonder Woman’ is set in 1984
Why was the latest “Wonder Woman” movie set in 1984? The obvious reasons are that it gave the moviemakers a chance to indulge in the same sort of 1980’s nostalgia seen in the television series, “Stranger Things.” It also allows its creators to revisit the Cold War and the end of Ronald Reagan’s first term…
The Latest
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How a Jewish quip got me banned from Facebook on Christmas
I spent Christmas in Facebook jail. It was lonely and I couldn’t talk to anyone except for my family who was sitting next to me on the couch. I spent most of this hard time in a reclining chair watching “WonderWoman84” (added punishment), “Top Chef” episodes, and other offerings, so perhaps it was not as…
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‘Wonder Woman 3’ greenlit as Gal Gadot criticisms mount online
The world loves Wonder Woman. But many still have issues with the actress playing her. The Amazonian superhero will return in a third standalone installment with star Gal Gadot and director Patty Jenkins Variety reported. The fast-tracking of the project follows impressive box-office returns for “Wonder Woman 1984.” The film has already made $85 million…
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The weirdest habits we’ve developed during this weirdest year
We’ve all found ourselves doing unprecedented things during these unprecedented times. So you can feel affirmed in whatever oddities you’ve found yourself reaching for to occupy your time — or just laugh at our plight — here are some of the weirdest things the Forward staff, and those in our orbit, have found ourselves doing…
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Was Dylan’s ‘Rough and Rowdy Ways’ his best since ‘Blood on the Tracks?’
Editor’s Note: In 2020, during the midst of the pandemic, Bob Dylan released his first album of new material since 2012’s “Tempest.” We invited 10 distinguished writers to give their assessment of the album that many critics have been calling Dylan’s best since “Blood on the Tracks.” Yes, This Really Was His Best Since BOTT,…
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The 20 greatest Jewish jokes of 2020
If there’s one thing we can all agree on — a big ask for 2020 — it’s that this was a year in which humor was more valuable than ever. Through the spikes of the COVID pandemic, a tightwire-tense presidential election and a summer of protests against racism and police violence, we’ve needed excuses to…
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Is Wonder Woman’s love interest a Dybbuk?
“Wonder Woman 1984” transports us to a simpler time of probable nuclear war, petroleum-fueled global conflicts and regrettable fashion. Does it also contain a Jewish clinging demon? Hear us out, but first, be warned, there are some plot spoilers ahead. In the follow-up to 2017’s “Wonder Woman,” Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) reunites with her long-dead…
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Our favorite stories of 2020
It happens every year: By the time the winter holidays roll around, we can barely remember the stories that thrilled us, pained us and made us think in the months before. Yet often, those stories are just as important in retrospect as when they were first published — sometimes even more so. So as a…
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Casting the inevitable Kushner family movie
Now that Donald Trump has pardoned Charles Kushner, many are just now hearing for the first time of the classic story of a real estate magnate who hired a sex worker to sleep with his brother-in-law and sent a tape of their tryst to his sister on the days before her son’s engagement party to…
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Film & TV The new ‘Superman’ is being called anti-Israel, but does that make it pro-Palestine?
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Fast Forward Tucker Carlson calls for stripping citizenship from Americans who served in the Israeli army
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Music ‘No matter what, I will always be a Jew.’ Billy Joel opens up about his family’s Holocaust history
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Opinion This German word explains Trump’s authoritarian impulses — and Hitler’s rise to power
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Opinion What Democrats fighting Trump should learn from Germany’s failure to stop Hitler
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Fast Forward 31st anniversary of AMIA bombing marked by ceremonies in Argentina, Israel and, for the first time, Congress
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Fast Forward Mike Huckabee to Israel: End hostile treatment of Christian allies
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Fast Forward Connie Francis, 20th-century star turned TikTok sensation, recorded an album of Jewish songs in 1960
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