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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WATCH NOW March 22: Four elections in two years: Is Israel’s democracy in crisis or stronger than ever?
Watch the recording here. Why can’t Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hold a stable coalition together? Where are the viable alternatives? How has the coronavirus pandemic changed the political dynamics? As Israelis head back to the polls, our editor-in-chief, Jodi Rudoren hosts a lively discussion with the American-Israeli author Yossi Klein Halevi, a senior fellow at…
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Trump’s impeachment lawyers are at war with language itself
The image of a Capitol custodial worker who had to wipe feces and blood off the walls in the aftermath of the riot was a visceral and unforgettable part of today’s impeachment proceedings, and it wiped away any notion that former President Trump’s rhetoric and the damage it caused was merely metaphorical. “I felt bad,”…
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In translating Yiddish letters, an entire heartbreaking history comes back to life
For many years these letters were quietly lying dormant. First they were in my parent’s three-story walk up in Borough Park, Brooklyn. Their bedroom faced the street and gave proper homage to “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” — a giant magnolia tree in front of their window, heralded all the seasons. Wafting through the air…
The Latest
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The secret Jewish history of the Chinese New Year
This year, the Chinese New Year falls on Friday, Feb. 12, the day when revelers — by some estimates, fully one-sixth of the earth’s population — will usher in the Year of the Ox. The day is observed throughout China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Singapore and some other Asian countries, as well as in Chinatowns around the…
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Stan Lee was his own favorite superhero – that was his downfall
True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee By Abraham Riesman Crown, 416 pages, $28 Where exactly did Stan Lee, the character and the person, come from? It depends what part of the man you’re looking for. One of Lee’s oft-repeated founding myths, evidence of the extreme self-love that made him the godhead of…
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Is pandemic dating making us all Orthodox?
It’s your first date. You’ve never met the other person, but they’ve been pre-screened and chosen for you, so you show up at the agreed-upon location, perhaps a park bench or hotel lobby. It’s daytime. You sit apart from each other, not close enough to touch or bump knees. Even though it’s the first date,…
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Gina Carano should watch ‘The Mandalorian’ before she makes Holocaust analogies
Lucasfilm sacked actress Gina Carano from the “Star Wars” universe over a post likening hatred directed at people with differing politics to the treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany. The question naturally follows: Has she been paying any attention to the show that just canned her? To begin with, Carano, an outspoken Republican and featured…
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March 15: Rukhl Schaechter Joins Boulder Jewish Film Festival Panel
On March 15, at 7pm ET / 4pm PT, the editor of the Yiddish Forward, Rukhl Schaechter, will be joining a panel at the Boulder Jewish Film Festival about the remastered 1979 documentary, Yiddish: The Mother Tongue. The talk will be open to viewers of the film and will include documentary filmmaker Pierre Sauvage, novelist…
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With Jewish lawyers on each side, the impeachment trial feels Talmudic
No president has ever been impeached twice. Nor has a president ever been impeached after leaving office. This is a historic moment that raises a lot of questions — very precise constitutional questions whose answers have the power to set new precedents going forward. Interpreting the Constitution requires as much philosophical argument as law, and…
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Our big idea for how Steven Spielberg should spend his Genesis Prize money
Steven Spielberg’s Oscars are about to have some company. On Wednesday the Genesis Prize announced that the director behind such films as “Jaws” and “Schindler’s List” was selected for the “Jewish Nobel,” which comes with a $1 million prize. For the first time in its history, world Jewry was invited to vote on who would…
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Bald or Jewish — the Internet’s newest parlor game
During Tuesday’s impeachment trial, our Slack channels exploded. First, of course, it was David Schoen, Trump’s lawyer, covering his head with each sip of water he took. Was it a reflex? An Orthodox Jew trying to hold onto a phantom kippah? Or was it an attempt to cover his head, in lieu of a yarmulke?…
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