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
-
Sea shanties have gone viral on TikTok — are niggunim next?
I have been singing a sea shanty all day. All week, really. This one is called the “The Wellerman” and it’s having a moment on TikTok. Yes, the whaling boat’s work songs from 200 years ago have gone viral with the teens. TikTok users are sharing the original audio, sung by a TikToker named Nathan…
-
‘Pretend It’s a City’ is the New York love letter we’ve never needed less
Fran Lebowitz really does not like Times Square. She does not like the kitschy lawn chairs. She does not like planters filled with fake foliage. She does not like the tourists who bury their heads in their phones or, worse, ask for directions. “Pretend it’s a city,” she likes to tell them, “where there are…
-
In Hebrew, ‘impeachment’ has the power to clean and restore us
Every article on impeachment insists that “impeach” does not mean to “remove” — but rather, in a quasi-Talmudic tone, the word means to “officially state the charges against a public official.” As law bloggers scrambled to parse the parameters of an “impeachable” offense, sounding a lot like the rabbis of two thousand years ago, the…
The Latest
-
The legacy of Jamie Raskin’s son continues to inspire online
After his son Tommy Raskin died by suicide, Rep. Jamie Raskin and his wife, Sarah Bloom, published a eulogy on Medium, detailing the life of their son, his struggles and successes, and sharing his poignant final note, in which he exhorted his family to take care of the “animals and the global poor.” They have…
-
In Israel, Black activists push change through art
A special Shomrim project brings you the colors, sounds and voices from the Black protest movement that has already started to bubble over into the Israeli art and culture scenes, inspiring a new generation of proud and conscious women and men. Ten monologues. As a teen, Lior was slapped in the face by a cop…
-
Mindy Weisel spent her life looking for ‘light.’ Now, she’s found it
Mindy Weisel wanted to know if I’d ever been to Kripalu. I have not. But Weisel, an abstract artist based in Jerusalem, is a longtime devotee of the Massachusetts yoga retreat. She rushed to our virtual interview after finishing a Zoom class with her favorite teacher — her exercise method of choice ever since the…
-
Why is everybody talking about Kristallnacht?
A right-wing pundit, a congressman with white nationalist sympathies and an action star-turned-governor of California have all made public analogies to Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass, in the last 24 hours. Are any of them right? In a Jan. 10 video, former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger called the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on…
-
How ‘Jeopardy!’ helped me mourn my grandparents
My mother often says she wasn’t even sure what her dad did for a job for most of her childhood. It’s not that it was hard to understand; he was a doctor. The issue was that, instead of talking over the dinner table, they watched “Jeopardy!” In our family, trivia was a tradition; my great…
-
No, the Trump Twitter ban isn’t ‘Orwellian’ – Stop saying it is.
Events that have been taking place in Washington will force dystopian novelists to try a little harder to imagine the collapse of civilization. When Twitter permanently banned President Donald Trump’s social account in the aftermath of the violent riot that took over Capitol Hill, sending members of Congress into hiding and reporters fleeing for cover,…
-
For his final ‘Jeopardy!’ a farewell to Alex Trebek
I definitely knew Will Ferrell’s impersonation of Alex Trebek before I knew the man himself. It was not a good imitation. Playing the longtime “Jeopardy!” host on “SNL,” Ferrell was piqued and perennially at his wit’s end over the regular haranguing of Darrell Hammond’s Sean Connery and the confounding idiocy of other celebrity contestants. Asking…
-
The danger when Nazis think of their victims as numbers, not people
It’s rare for a journalist to have the opportunity to interview the person who harassed him on television. Johnny Roman Garza was sentenced to 16 months in federal prison for putting a threatening poster up on the home of the editor of a prominent Jewish newspaper in Arizona and attempting to do the same thing…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
Fast Forward Unarmed man who tackled Bondi Beach Hanukkah attacker identified as Ahmed al-Ahmed
- 2
Opinion I grew up believing Australia was the best place to be Jewish. This Hanukkah shooting forces a reckoning I do not want.
- 3
Fast Forward Hanukkah shooting leaves at least 15 dead at Australia’s most popular beach
- 4
Fast Forward Father and son suspects in Bondi Beach Hanukkah attack identified as Sajid and Naveed Akram by law enforcement
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward After MIT professor’s killing, Jewish influencers spread unverified antisemitism claim
-
Film & TV Decades after her ancestor was blacklisted from Hollywood, this teenager is bringing her family’s history to light
-
Antisemitism Decoded Some people are learning the wrong lessons from Ahmed al Ahmed
-
Fast Forward At White House Hanukkah party, Trump says Congress ‘is becoming antisemitic’
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
