Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of Jewish culture. Here, you’ll learn about the latest (and sometimes earliest) in Jewish art, music, film, theater, books as well as the secret Jewish history of everything and everyone from The Rolling Stones to…
Culture
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I have seen the future of America — in a pastrami sandwich in Queens
San Wei, which serves pastrami sandwiches along with churros and biang biang noodles, represents an immigrant's fulfillment of the American dream
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Now 90, Frederick Wiseman is as vital and relevant as ever
If there were a Nobel Prize for documentary filmmaking, Frederick Wiseman would have won a long time ago. Not just because he’s talented (no guarantee of Stockholm gold), but because his work seems to fit so well with the guilty dynamite mogul’s pet ideals: “wide-hearted humanity,” “benefit to mankind,” and so forth. The first time…
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On his 80th birthday, remembering the time John Lennon sang ‘Hava Nagilah’
Had he not been gunned down in December 1980 by a deranged “fan” lying in wait for him outside of his Upper West Side residence in Manhattan, John Lennon may well have been observing his 80th birthday on Friday, October 9. The ostensible founder and leader of the Beatles, the most beloved critically and commercially…
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Sukkahs for humans? That’s so 5780. This year, Jewish pets observe the chag
For Jews, Sukkot is just the latest holiday to fall victim to the pandemic. Singing and dancing are off the (outdoor) table. Lulavs and etrogs can’t be shared. Even the sukkah, which might seem like the perfect pandemic-era structure, is suspect: New York authorities mandated social distancing inside, and most synagogues are treating them like…
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A Jewish poet of survival, Louise Glück is an incredibly timely Nobel choice
For new readers and longtime readers, one of the great pleasures of Glück’s work is following her progression as a poet
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Pence’s debate fly has a Talmudic ancestor
Yesterday during the 2020 Vice Presidential Debate, a fly breached a plexiglass barrier amid a miasma of droplets and planted itself firmly on Vice President Mike Pence’s head for two full minutes as he nattered on about law enforcement. Surely you noticed, have seen the memes, the analysis and the instant Twitter account — but…
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Louise Glück, Jewish poet of classical themes, wins the Nobel Prize
In the maelstrom of coronavirus, Borough Park protests and vice-presidential debates, finally some good news: Poet Louise Glück has been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. The granddaughter of Hungarian Jews who ran a New York grocery, she is the first Jewish literature laureate since Bob Dylan, who took the prize in 2016. The Swedish…
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Long live Zayde Wisdom, the NHL’s new most Yiddishkeit player
A lot of our zaydes are right-wingers. Many are wise. But not like this. On Wednesday, Philadelphia’s hockey team, the Flyers, drafted a young man with the improbably old and Jewish name of Zayde Wisdom in their second round picks. It’s the second bit of good news this week for the 18-year-old Toronto native, who…
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Did the Trump White House really echo ‘Triumph of the Will’?
In film theory, there’s something called the Kuleshov Effect, which teaches that juxtaposing images in sequence can suggest completely different reads of a shot. The typical example is an image of a blank-faced man placed alongside an image of a baby in a casket, a pairing that makes viewers interpret the man’s expression as sad…
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That time the Bee Gees sang a love song to Israel
News that HBO has acquired the rights to air “The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart” — the first authorized documentary about the famed singing group —made us wonder if it might offer any insight into or reveal the untold story behind the group’s 1971 ballad, “Israel.” The British-by-way-of-Australia group’s 1971 album,…
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This 102-year-old activist was born into the last pandemic. Now she has one message: Vote!
The snapshot showed an elderly woman doing what thousands of Americans are doing this week: mailing her ballot for the presidential election. Yet it also captured the surreal nature of being a citizen at this precise moment in American history. The voter in question — 102-year-old Beatrice Lumpkin — was born in 1918, a year…
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In cancelling ‘GLOW,’ Netflix deals a body blow to representation
Without meaning to, “GLOW,” the Netflix dramedy set in the hairspray-hazed world of women’s pro-wrestling, had one of the most gutting finales in TV history. Warning: spoilers follow. At the end of the show’s third season, Ruth Wilder (Alison Brie) runs to catch her flight home for Christmas after a months-long residence in Las Vegas….
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