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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The weirdest habits we’ve developed during this weirdest year
We’ve all found ourselves doing unprecedented things during these unprecedented times. So you can feel affirmed in whatever oddities you’ve found yourself reaching for to occupy your time — or just laugh at our plight — here are some of the weirdest things the Forward staff, and those in our orbit, have found ourselves doing…
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Was Dylan’s ‘Rough and Rowdy Ways’ his best since ‘Blood on the Tracks?’
Editor’s Note: In 2020, during the midst of the pandemic, Bob Dylan released his first album of new material since 2012’s “Tempest.” We invited 10 distinguished writers to give their assessment of the album that many critics have been calling Dylan’s best since “Blood on the Tracks.” Yes, This Really Was His Best Since BOTT,…
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The 20 greatest Jewish jokes of 2020
If there’s one thing we can all agree on — a big ask for 2020 — it’s that this was a year in which humor was more valuable than ever. Through the spikes of the COVID pandemic, a tightwire-tense presidential election and a summer of protests against racism and police violence, we’ve needed excuses to…
The Latest
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Is Wonder Woman’s love interest a Dybbuk?
“Wonder Woman 1984” transports us to a simpler time of probable nuclear war, petroleum-fueled global conflicts and regrettable fashion. Does it also contain a Jewish clinging demon? Hear us out, but first, be warned, there are some plot spoilers ahead. In the follow-up to 2017’s “Wonder Woman,” Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) reunites with her long-dead…
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Our favorite stories of 2020
It happens every year: By the time the winter holidays roll around, we can barely remember the stories that thrilled us, pained us and made us think in the months before. Yet often, those stories are just as important in retrospect as when they were first published — sometimes even more so. So as a…
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Casting the inevitable Kushner family movie
Now that Donald Trump has pardoned Charles Kushner, many are just now hearing for the first time of the classic story of a real estate magnate who hired a sex worker to sleep with his brother-in-law and sent a tape of their tryst to his sister on the days before her son’s engagement party to…
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Insider insights into ‘Shtisel’ season 3
The Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center in New York City recently presented the world premiere of the first episode of “Shtisel” Season 3, which launched in Israel on Dec. 20 and is coming to Netflix in spring 2021. The virtual advance screening was preceded by a live panel discussion with the series’ stars—Michael Aloni (Akiva), Doval’e…
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Need a movie to watch on Christmas? These are our favorites.
Members of the Tribe, we have faced great challenges this year, taking Seders and the high holidays virtual and mastering socially distant minyanim. Through shifting CDC policy and mixed messaging from lawmakers, we have tried to keep ourselves safe while honoring our culture. Now, we must once more persevere despite our uncertain world. Yes: We…
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Music How Herb Alpert made the most underrated Jewish Christmas album of all time
This holiday season inevitably brings to mind all the classic Christmas songs that have been written by Jews. Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas” is the big blini, of course, having been covered more than 500 times since Bing Crosby first sang it on his NBC Radio show on Christmas Day 1941. But there are over a…
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With huckster Trump in charge, the carnival goes on — and on and on
One of the few things Fox News and the Guardian newspaper agree upon is Donald Trump’s resemblance to a carnival huckster. This indelibly American image brings to mind Harold Hill, the fast-talking trickster who steals the show — and very nearly the savings of a small Iowa town — in “The Music Man.” Yet, for…
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Meet the Orthodox Jewish Santa who trains America’s Christmas performers
Is it possible to be both a full time Santa and a full time Jew? Rick Rosenthal says yes
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Yiddish פֿאַר וואָס הערט מען ניט וועגן דעם גלעצנדיקן וווּקס פֿון דער ישׂראל־בערזע? Why aren’t we hearing about the dramatic growth of the Israeli stock market?
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