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
For Paul Newman’s 96th birthday, his lost cinematic masterpiece
Editor’s Note: Paul Newman would have celebrated his 96th birthday today. To commemorate that date, we’re taking another look at this essay about the Anton Chekhov film he directed on the stage of a Yiddish theater. Paul Newman directed a pioneering, independent film shot at a Yiddish theater on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, and you’ve…
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A hit Israeli TV show is finally in English. But will it translate?
“The New Black,” which goes by the name “Shababnikim” in its original Hebrew, was a hit in Israel when it came out in 2017;. Airing on Israel’s HOT network, its views outstripped even popular foreign shows such as “Game of Thrones.” Now it is being released in the U.S., with English subtitles, accessible to a…
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A 1939 satire critiques shtetl life — before it disappeared forever
Depictions of shtetl life — with their pogroms, close knit community and at times provincial ways — invite nostalgia and criticism all at once. Many of the shtetls’ most famous chroniclers in fiction were also moralists of the old world, critiquing the pieties and superstitions of the Pale of Settlement, often from the safe distance…
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Amanda Gorman’s inauguration poem was beautiful and mighty — no matter what your religion may be
At Joe Biden’s glorious inauguration, our first National Youth Poet Laureate, Amanda Gorman, recited her poem for the occasion, “The Hill We Climb.” It was beautiful and mighty and fit the occasion. Yet a column in The Forward criticized one fleeting passage in the poem, in which Gorman quoted the Biblical prophecy that “that everyone…
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How an Orthodox Jewish refugee became a theater and opera legend
The Australian opera and theater director Elijah Moshinsky, who died on Jan. 14 of COVID-19 complications at age 75, was celebrated for his onstage collaborations with superstar singers from Luciano Pavarotti to Plácido Domingo, and stage legends from Helen Mirren to Judi Dench. Yet Moshinsky’s most ardent lifelong inspiration was arguably drawn from his Jewish…
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Walter Bernstein — a writer who outlived the Hollywood blacklist knew how to choose his battles
The American Jewish screenwriter Walter Bernstein, who died Jan. 23 at the age of 101, knew how to choose his battles. Perhaps most celebrated for “The Front” (1976), a semi-autobiographical evocation of his experiences during the Hollywood Blacklist, Bernstein fought for social progress while astutely side-stepping some life-threatening conflicts. Bernstein was born in Crown Heights,…
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Remembering Larry King, a broadcast legend and a consummate entertainer
The TV host Larry King, who has died at the age of 87, applied a celebrity interviewing approach to broadcast journalism in a career lasting well over a half-century, with his Brooklyn Jewish roots as a constant element of his public persona. Born Lawrence Harvey Zeiger, he attended Lafayette High School in the Bath Beach…
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In Brighton Beach, a gay teen seeks easy answers and finds only enigmas
When “Minyan” debuted in late February 2020, you were probably hoarding toilet paper or stocking up on the wrong kind of canned goods. In other words, doing anything but paying attention to the latest in indie Jewish cinema. That’s a shame. The film, which is getting something of a do-over at this year’s all-virtual New…
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Schumer in for a hard time after calling out Trump’s ‘erection’
Chuck Schumer has been the Senate majority leader for less than a week and already his oratory has risen to our attention. Taking to the Senate floor on Jan. 22, Schumer pushed for the prosecution of ex-President Trump, saying “There will be a trial, and when the trial ends, Senators will have to decide if…
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Amanda Gorman’s Bible quote endorses religious liberty — but it’s still from the Bible
Amanda Gorman, the 22-year-old National Youth Poet Laureate, shot into the spotlight instantly after she recited her powerful poem “The Hill We Climb” for Joe Biden’s inauguration. Her words, her Prada headband and her “Hamilton” references all drew chatter online; she tweeted that she is a big fan of the musical about the nation’s founding….
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Like mushrooms after the rain: The flourishing of Yiddish culture in the D.P. camps
Read this article in Yiddish Words Reaching for Life: Yiddish Culture in Displaced Persons Camps (Hebrew) Ella Florsheim Published by the Zalman Shazar Center and Yad Vashem Publications, 2020, 344 pp. My father was among the 250,000 refugees who lived in Jewish displaced persons camps throughout Germany and Austria after World War II. But unlike…
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