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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Sitting Shiva for Spot?
As I peer down at her cotton-puff head, my sense of guilt sets in. Peeps, my bichon frise associate, has just taken a cocktail of three different medicines meant to keep her ticker ticking. Her eyes water, and her mouth turns downward, quivering slightly. It’s obvious she is not digging this new regimen. At 13,…
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How I Learned Shiva
Forty-one years ago this coming week, I walked with sleepless eyes and a weary heart to the front door of my childhood home, where an unexpected visitor had just shown up for my mother’s shiva. If I recall correctly, he was wearing faded jeans, a denim jacket and hippie work boots —his usual outfit —…
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Why that bowl of chicken soup could be deadly — and not just for the chicken
Salt Wars: The Battle Over the Biggest Killer in the American Diet Michael F. Jacobson MIT Press, 296 pages, $26.95 It will not surprise you in the slightest that there’s a white crystal scourge eroding the health and mental wellbeing of the nation. It might however surprise you to know that you, dear reader, almost…
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This Hanukkah, we have become ‘those kinds of Jews’
Dec. 8, 2020. My mother, having done her usual migration to Florida, texts me while I’m walking the dog. “How many are you expecting for Hanukkah?” she asks. I text back even though my sarcasm can’t be heard through my typing: “How many people? It’s 2020, Mom. It’s just us.” And then I think about…
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The secret Jewish history of Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra was a staunch supporter of Israel and wore a mezuzah.
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Louise Glück’s ‘minstrel show’ Nobel speech draws ire
On Dec. 7, newly-minted laureate Louise Glück delivered her Nobel acceptance speech outside of her Massachusetts home. In it, the poet expressed her lifelong interest in a kind of confessional poem, in which the speaker intimately addresses the reader. And in making her point, she lauded a work many found tone-deaf in the current climate,…
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FKA twigs sues former boyfriend Shia LaBeouf for ‘relentless abuse’
The musician FKA twigs has filed a civil lawsuit against Jewish actor Shia LaBeouf citing physical, sexual and emotional abuse during their year-long relationship. The lawsuit details the experience of FKA twigs, born in England as Tahliah Debrett Barnett, and that of another of LaBeouf’s former girlfriends, the stylist Karolyn Pho. It describes LaBeouf’s behavior…
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Oh, great, Benjamin Netanyahu performed a duet with an Israeli pop star
Whenever a head of state sings, it’s a risky endeavor. How does one look fun without sacrificing the dignity of the office? Or, on the flip side, austere and on-pitch enough to honor a serious occasion? President Obama is the leader who’s pulled it off most successfully in recent memory: At various points in his…
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Why are there so many Christmas trees in Hallmark’s Hanukkah movies?
In the year 2019, a Hanukkah miracle occurred — sort of. In what seemed like a divinely-ordained response to thousands of Jews pleading for a few shreds of Hanukkah content in a sea of Christmas cheer, the Hallmark Channel added two flicks about the Festival of Lights to its infamously corny line-up of holiday movies….
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Music How a search for Jewish inclusion helped create ‘Puppy for Hanukkah’
By now we all know Daveed Diggs’ “Puppy for Hanukkah” is a certified bop. But it was also meant to be something more than just a fun ode to the Festival of Lights. If you wade your way through the effusive social media comments — and some parents playfully cursing the Walt Disney Company for…
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Battered by the pandemic, the Tenement Museum looks ahead with arrival of new president
The Tenement Museum, a New York City icon that found itself in severe financial straits during the coronavirus pandemic, has named a new president. Dr. Annie Polland, the first woman to lead the museum since it was founded in 1988 by Ruth Abram and Anita Jacobson, will take office in January 2021. She arrives at…
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Fast Forward Unarmed man who tackled Bondi Beach Hanukkah attacker identified as Ahmed al-Ahmed
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Fast Forward After MIT professor’s killing, Jewish influencers spread unverified antisemitism claim
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