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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He collaborated with Leonard Bernstein, Allen Ginsberg and Captain Beefheart — can you name this guitarist?
Born in 1952, the eclectic American Jewish guitarist Gary Lucas has collaborated in performance with Captain Beefheart’s band and Jeff Buckley, but also with Leonard Bernstein, and Allen Ginsberg. Anticipating the release early next year of “The Essential Gary Lucas,” a 2-CD retrospective from Knitting Factory Records, the Syracuse-born musician has regaled fans during the…
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Books Out of a stereotype of beauty, Elena Ferrante has created something beautiful
Halfway through Elena Ferrante’s new novel, “The Lying Life of Adults,” the narrator, a teenage girl named Giovanna, runs into a priest. Don Giacomo has fallen into disfavor at his church. Previously buoyant, his skin has turned sallow, and a mysterious, violet rash is creeping over one of his hands. Giovanna, ever curious, asks Giacomo…
The Latest
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Music Why Trump has to stop playing ‘God Bless America’ and ‘Hallelujah’
Leonard Cohen died, poetically enough, the day before early returns ushered in the era of Trump in America. That meant the lifelong Canadian national, who made his home in Los Angeles, was spared the Trump presidency. He didn’t have to endure Kate McKinnon’s cloyingly despairing rendition of his song “Hallelujah” performed in character as Hillary…
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How Scooby-Doo became TV’s most Jewish cartoon dog
The American Jewish animator and producer Joe Ruby, who co-created the TV series character Scooby-Doo, died on August 26 at age 87. His family announced in The Los Angeles Times the following day that Ruby’s “Jewish faith played an increasingly important role in his life, and Joe was bar mitzvahed at the age of thirty-nine.”…
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Playwright David Adjmi takes on a new role: Memoirist
On a sweltering day in New York, and a milder one in Los Angeles, David Adjmi moved our Facetime conversation up to his terrace and showed me the view: trees and white facades melting into the greenery of the Hollywood Hills. “Can you see it?” Adjmi asked. “Isn’t that pretty? This is why I like…
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Mr. Kushner, your privilege is showing
Jared Kushner dunking on NBA players for being wealthy and entitled is about as rich as he is. In a morning interview with CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” Kushner was asked for the White House’s take on plans by NBA players to boycott playoff games in protest over the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wis….
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Bill and Ted’s creators on ‘Face the Music’ and tikkun olam
The world changed in 1991. At the San Dimas Battle of the Bands, William S. Preston, Esq. and Theodore Logan, backed by Death on upright bass, two aliens on bongos and robot back-up-dancer doppelgangers united the world in song and changed the course of history forever. Or so we thought. For Ed Solomon and Chris…
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Arnold Spielberg — engineering pioneer, father of Steven — dies at 103
Arnold Meyer Spielberg, who died on August 25 at age 103, was more than just the father of celebrated film director Steven Spielberg. Born in Cincinnati to a family of Ukrainian Jewish origin, Arnold Spielberg grew up to be an electrical engineer of uncommon invention and productivity. He developed research that would make the personal…
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Is suburbia the American dream — or its worst nightmare?
On the very first page of “The Sprawl: Reconsidering the Weird American Suburbs,” author Jason Diamond describes feeling ambivalent about admitting you’re from the suburbs. “If you’re from Long Island … you’ll tell anyone who asks you’re from New York,” he writes, to which I reply, “Guilty as charged.” Diamond himself has always claimed Chicago…
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Amar’e Stoudemire completes his conversion to Judaism
The Jews can always use a good power forward on our team. We now have a great one. Realizing a years-long process of study and engagement with Judaism, Amar’e Stoudemire, the former NBA player now dribbling for Maccabi Tel Aviv, made his final full-court press into the faith on August 26, 2020. Stoudemire announced the…
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I wrote speeches for a fictional president; no one could have imagined Donald Trump
Long before Fox became a right-wing propaganda machine, I crafted speeches for an Oval Office occupant on their comedy series, “Mr. President,” which starred George C. Scott and Madeline Kahn. My husband Martin and I were in the writers’ room in 1987, several years after politics and performing had intersected with the election of former…
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Culture Trump wants to honor Hannah Arendt in a ‘Garden of American Heroes.’ Is this a joke?
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Fast Forward The invitation said, ‘No Jews.’ The response from campus officials, at least, was real.
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Opinion A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on US soil. I think I know why no one objected.
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Fast Forward Columbia staff receive texts asking if they’re Jewish, as government hunts antisemitic harassment on campus
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