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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An American remake of ‘Shtisel’ is coming — and it sounds nothing like ‘Shtisel’
Get ready — an American “Shtisel” remake has been announced. The show, set to be written by “Insatiable” creator Lauren Gussis and directed by Oscar winner Kenneth Lonergan, will be produced by CBS Studios, though it could end up streaming on any given network. Like the original “Shtisel,” the American show will be “a modern-day…
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Remembering Yaphet Kotto, charismatic actor and proud Jew
Yaphet Kotto, who died on March 15 at age 81, used prolonged experience with Hebrew liturgy as a way to separate reality from dreams. Born in New York to a Panamanian and West Indian mother who converted to Judaism to marry his father, a Cameroonian who was raised Jewish, Kotto had a sustained film and…
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How to spend your entire $1,400 stimulus check on Passover food
Your $1,400 stimulus check just dropped in your bank account, and with less than two weeks left until the first Seder, you must be wondering: “How can I spend every single dollar that the government gave me… on Passover essentials?” As much as we love the dryly delectable taste of flour and water and the…
The Latest
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Artists confront the new plagues of Passover
Jews are uniquely equipped to ruminate on a year of plagues — from time immemorial, plagues have been our dinner conversation. But the pandemic is different. At your Seder, it may not be wise to sprinkle wine for the Makot Mitzrayim (those drips could themselves hold COVID droplets). God’s mighty hand and outstretched arm have…
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Why the new matzah emoji is not kosher for Passover
When you’re typing on an iPhone, the autofill interface tries to guess the next word you mean to type, or finish the word you’re currently typing. This is also how it suggest emojis — type in “fire,” and the flame emoji will pop up, which is very helpful given that there are 3,521 emojis to…
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Digging into Holocaust history and finding a sort of gold
Plunder: A Memoir of Family Property and Nazi Treasure By Menachem Kaiser Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 277 pages, $27 Menachem Kaiser’s third-generation Holocaust memoir, in keeping with the genre, is an act of reclamation – or at least an attempt at one. In “Plunder,” Kaiser admits to the limits of his project and confesses his envy…
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Kosher-for-Passover dog food? I wouldn’t recommend it
Those hoping for an observant hound might be in for an unpleasant surprise
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Statues of men grace parks and town squares, so why does RBG get a shopping mall?
Grocery shopping in Brooklyn has been as hellish, if not more so, than everywhere else in the pandemic. Trader Joe’s lines snaked fully around the block even during wintry weather. All year, the doors to City Point Brooklyn, where my closest TJ’s is located, have represented the joys of indoor warmth, everything bagel seasoning and…
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This year’s Oscar nominees prove the Academy is more devoted to itself than to diversity
For the Academy, there was only room for one, wigged, weird-accented performance from Sacha Baron Cohen. Naturally, it went to the one scripted by Aaron Sorkin and dripping with sanctimony. The Oscars announced the full roster of nominees Monday morning, marking nearly a year without cinemas, exempting many of the top contenders from a theatrical…
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The Grammys highlighted Jews of color — but picked a strange champion for racial justice
In real life, Taylor Swift dates a Brit known for playing Nazis. But in the fantasy realm of the Grammys, she shacked up in an astroturf-peated A-Frame with boychik producers Aaron Dessner and Jack Antonoff; they went on to win Album of the Year for “Folklore.” This was just one vision in a strange, socially…
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‘Nomadland’ and ‘Borat 2’ are the same movie — but only one deserves the Oscar
Good and bad seem to be out of fashion; these days, it’s all about better and worse. The new president is praised for being better than the Antichrist. Wage slavery is praised for existing at all, because any job is better than no job, and $15 an hour is better than $7.25. In a bizarre…
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