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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On her 90th birthday, the Jewish origin story of Betty Boop
August 9 marks the 90th anniversary of Betty Boop’s first appearance in a cartoon short produced by the Austrian Jewish animator Max Fleischer. Betty was eventually voiced by a Bronx-born Jewish actress, Mae Questel. Yet fans of animation have sometimes been baffled in trying to pinpoint the degree of Yiddishkeit in Betty’s chameleon-like persona. To…
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Books Pete Hamill was New York’s last great storyteller
The summer before my freshman year of high school, I was required to read two books. The first was “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” And the second was “Snow in August” by Pete Hamill, who passed away on August 5 at 85. For most of my life, growing up in Denver, Colorado, I had only two Jewish…
The Latest
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What Seth Rogen’s new movie gets right and wrong about the history of pickling
Toward the end of the new Seth Rogen comedy, “An American Pickle,” time-displaced pickler Herschel Greenbaum’s millennial great-grandson informs him that Brooklyn hipsters are pickling watermelon. “They pickle fruit these days?” says Herschel, who spent a century salinating in a pickle vat before being revived in 2019. “Just when I think I figure it out,…
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Let Eric Andre, the most subversive comedian working today, replace Ellen DeGeneres
After years of industry-wide whispers, high profile reports are beginning to shatter Ellen DeGeneres’ veneer of niceness. Former employees recently dished to BuzzFeed News with stories of a toxic work environment replete with microaggressions, racism and intimidation, allegations that have put DeGeneres’ image in jeopardy. But, “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” is a hit, placing NBC…
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In bringing back ‘Hunters,’ Amazon fails the test of history — and good taste
The Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Museum condemned it for welcoming “future deniers.” So did the USC Shoah Foundation. But Amazon’s “Hunters” is moving forward with a second season, all the same. Somehow, the outrage over the series’ invented Holocaust atrocities — most notably a game of deadly “human chess” — wasn’t enough to squash interest in a…
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I Was Hesitant To Write About The Holocaust — Until Toni Morrison Lit The Path
Editor’s note: This essay, originally published on August 8, 2019, was republished for the first anniversary of Toni Morrison’s death on August 5, 2020. Toni Morrison leaned forward in her chair, watching my face as she spoke. It was clear, she said, that I had a story to tell. “But this —” here she pointed…
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On Writing An Opera With Toni Morrison: ‘She Was The Voice Of The Nation’s Conscience’
Editor’s note: This Q & A, originally published on August 6, 2019, has been republished for the first anniversary of Toni Morrison’s death. On August 5, 2019, the revered novelist Toni Morrison died at age 88. News of her passing was met with grief around the globe, as writers, artists, political leaders and readers reflected…
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How a Jewish marketing whiz tried to save old-time Russian hockey
Though some knowledge of (and interest in) the national ice hockey team of the former Soviet Union (CCCP) might help you to appreciate Gabe Polsky’s new documentary, “Red Penguins,” it’s not essential. Even without a solid hockey background — for that, see Polsky’s earlier doc “Red Army” — this is an oddly fascinating story. It’s…
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Jonathan Swan is the meme hero we need right now
Jonathan Swan’s agile interview with President Donald Trump for Axios on HBO was revelatory. The 40-minute conversation exposed the president’s dismissiveness of pandemic-related deaths, his unwillingness to praise critics like the late John Lewis and his remarkable lack of concern over Russia’s reported aid to Taliban soldiers. But for the internet, the biggest takeaway was…
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Trump: ‘Yo-Semites.’ Us: ‘Hello!’ Listen to our rap!
In an August 4 speech at the White House, President Trump was invoking the beauty of our national parks when he stumbled on the words “Yosemite’s towering sequoias.” He said “yo-Semites,” to which we say: “Hi!” Here’s the clip pic.twitter.com/b4NtCuEa2z — Brennan Murphy (@brenonade) August 4, 2020 Jewish Twitter, naturally, had a field day. In…
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Yiddish gets its star turn in Seth Rogen’s “An American Pickle”
Read this article in Yiddish When the trailer dropped for “An American Pickle,’’ starring Seth Rogen as Herschel Greenbaum, a Yiddish-speaking immigrant rat-chaser who finds himself in 21st century Brooklyn after a century preserved in pickle brine, the reaction among Yiddishists was mixed. While the Yiddish in the trailer sounded promising, some feared that Rogen…
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