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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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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What Nick Cannon learned from Bari Weiss’ anti-Semitism book
In her review of Bari Weiss’ “How to Fight Anti-Semitism,” Forward deputy culture editor Talya Zax asked, simply enough, “Who is it for?” Well, it might be for Nick Cannon. The actor, who has embarked on a learning tour since making anti-Semitic comments on his podcast, “Cannon’s Class” which led to an end to his…
The Latest
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How Leon Fleisher overcame adversity to become the Rembrandt of the piano
The pianist Leon Fleisher, who died on August 2 at age 92, was part of an aspirational generation of American Jews. Born in San Francisco, he was the son of impoverished immigrants from Odessa and Poland who managed two hat shops. By age four, Fleisher already showed talent at the piano. He studied with Lev…
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In Seth Rogen’s ‘American Pickle,’ a salty tale of preserving (at least some) Jewish traditions
It’s surprisingly easy to read “An American Pickle,” a fable about Jewish continuity as told through the pickled personage of an Eastern European immigrant preserved 100 years in brine, as an allegory for Seth Rogen’s most recent controversy. Based on Simon Rich’s New Yorker novella “Sell Out” and developed with Rogen, who also produced, the…
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How a Holocaust survivor’s daughter found a passion for horses
“We’re horse people!” I recall dad saying when I was about seven years old. “They’ve been in our family for generations!” Even when I was that young, even before I fully understood what it meant when dad told me he survived the Holocaust, masquerading as a Catholic with a false baptismal certificate when he was…
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The Jewish Uruguayan movie we all need to be watching now on Netflix
In Latin America, when the camera flashes, you don’t say “cheese”; you say ‘Whiskey.’” That invented social artifice, which makes it appear in photos as if we are living a moment of “joy” as the mouth creates a smile-like shape, has a lot to do what happens in “Whiskey,” a 2004 film set in the…
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August 25: Reclaiming Jewish Social Justice | The Poor of your Town Come First
This talk will take place on Tuesday, August 25 at 1:00 p.m. EST. Register here. The global COVID-19 pandemic has sparked a critical discussion about the relationship between Israel and world Jewry in these challenging times. While this issue spans the Jewish world, we would like to re-frame this discussion by exploring the Jewish ideal…
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September 10: “How Do We Explain American Jews’ Fascination With Shtisel?”
This talk will take place on Thursday, September 10 at 7:00 p.m. ET/ 4:00 p.m. PT. Register here. Joseph Berger, former long-time New York Times reporter and author of “The Pious Ones: The World of Hasidim and their Battles With America,” Natan Meir, author and chair of the Harold Schnitzer Family Program in Judaic Studies,…
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Martha Nierenberg, entrepreneur and art restitution plaintiff, dies at 96
Martha Nierenberg, a biochemist and entrepreneur who spent decades fighting her native Hungary for the the return of her family’s Nazi-looted masterpieces, has died at the age of 96. Her family reported that she passed in her sleep on June 27 at a senior living facility in Rye, N.Y. Martha Weiss de Csepel was born…
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Israel made a gamer-friendly tank
Israel’s newest tank might be operated by an Xbox controller. The Carmel, one of three model armored vehicles in the running to be the IDF’s newest mobile weapon of war, was made to be operated by Israel’s young soldiers. As the Washington Post reports, the windowless vehicle on tank treads has an interior that looks…
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On his 73rd birthday, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s secret Jewish history
Arnold Schwarzenegger, who turns 73 on Thursday, July 30, had, at best an ambivalent and, at worst a difficult relationship with his father, Gustav. A police chief and former member of the Nazi party, Gustav was a strict disciplinarian who favored Arnold’s older brother, Meinhard. Gustav supposedly harbored doubts that he was even Arnold’s biological…
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Most Popular
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Fast Forward Why the Antisemitism Awareness Act now has a religious liberty clause to protect ‘Jews killed Jesus’ statements
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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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