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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These filmmakers are putting Asian-American Jews on camera. Here’s what they want you to know
It’s a precept you’ve probably heard, no matter what form your Jewish education took: “You shall not oppress the stranger, because you know what it’s like to be strangers in the land of Egypt.” Found in the Torah portion mishpatim, that sentence is often cited as a command for compassion rooted in Jewish values. But…
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Netanyahu’s embrace of ‘South Park’ proves the Michael Che dustup was political
There’s a lot going on in the new “South Park” special, but only a few seconds that seem to matter to Benjamin Netanyahu. On Thursday, the prime minister tweeted a clip from the episode that showed a passenger plane decked out with Magen Davids appearing in a burst of spangly sky diamonds. “It’s Air Israel…
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Groucho Barx and Matzah Ball: Why do Jewish pets have Jewish names?
In early lockdown, my friend Jess got a pandemic puppy. She told me she was considering naming him Knish. I suggested Babka, and, as though it was an unspoken truth that the new puppy must be named after a Jewish food, we ran through every example we could think of. Latke was too obvious, and…
The Latest
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One year under lockdown — celebrating the anniversary from hell
March 11 isn’t a date to be commemorated with champagne or flowers. Nobody will celebrate the day in 2020 when the virus came to America. The traditional gift for a first anniversary is paper. This year’s favorites will likely be the stimulus check or a COVID Vaccination Record Card. Like so many Americans, I’ve been…
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Returning to Poland, chasing ghosts and a lost painting
“Still Life in Lodz,” a new documentary by Polish-Jewish director Slawomir Grunberg, centers on a Jewish woman’s return to her childhood home in Lodz, Poland, She, Lilka Elbaum, and her family were forced to flee no, not during the Holocaust, but in the wake of the 1967 Six Day War and a spike in Polish…
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Why is this Haggadah different from all others? Hitler.
This particular Haggadah, different from all others, was bound to raise eyebrows — if not create a furor. We don’t know much about its origins, but here’s what we do: It was written by a Jew in Rabat, Morocco, sometime after the start of Operation Torch, the 1942 Allied invasion that spelled victory against the…
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We need to talk about ‘Kike’ — how did the slur originate anyway?
What are the origins of the antisemitic slur "Kike" ?
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Between a shtetl-born painter and a Dutch expressionist, remarkable parallels
With his canvases depicting remote villages, blood-soaked carcasses and portraits of ordinary people, Chaïm Soutine was Willem de Kooning’s favorite–hands down. “I’ve always been crazy about Soutine — all of his paintings,” the Dutch-born artist once said. Now visitors to the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia can see how the shtetl-born Jewish artist inspired de Kooning…
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Your comprehensive guide to choosing a new haggadah this year
Well, here we are again, still in Egypt. Not really — vaccinations are proceeding apace, and there are good reasons to be hopeful that next year’s Seder will be, if not in Jerusalem, then at least back at Bubbe’s place. We may not be across the Red Sea yet, but we have smeared plenty of…
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The Passover Parade: A look back at a century of unleavened fashion
The nerd-of-a-rabbi in me has found a pandemic pastime that beats doom scrolling: poring through digitized old Jewish periodicals. Among my discoveries: Passover has a fashionable history. For about a century starting in the 1850s, dressing up for the spring holiday was de rigueur for American Jews. “Buy your Pesadik clothing at Bailey’s,” urged a…
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WATCH NOW: May 12: “Animal, Vegetable, Junk”: A Conversation on Food, Climate Change and Spirituality with Mark Bittman
Watch the recording here. Join best-selling food writer Mark Bittman, Dayenu’s Rabbi Jennie Rosenn and National Editor Rob Eshman as they explore connections between food, climate change, food justice and spirituality. Mark Bittman is the author of 30 books, including his newest book “Animal, Vegetable, Junk” and the How to Cook Everything series. He was…
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