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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Why Stanley Kubrick’s ‘2001’ is the ultimate golem story
News that one of the iconic spacesuits from Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” is going up for auction, gives us occasion to explore the link between the myth of the golem and Kubrick’s legendary science fiction film. The suit was made by the company P. Frankenstein & Sons Ltd. in Manchester, England, and the…
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NBC’s Jacob Soboroff on the ongoing crisis of family separation
Jacob Soboroff was among the first American civilians to witness what family separation looked like. By the time the NBC and MSNBC correspondent arrived at the Casa Padre center in Brownsville, Tex. in June 2018, the policy had already affected thousands of migrants. “Going to a former Walmart that’s 250,000 square feet and seeing 1,500…
The Latest
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McCarthy was anti-Communist. Was he also anti-Semitic?
Was the anti-Communist Senator Joe McCarthy also an anti-Semite? That question assumes new resonance in this era of spiraling xenophobia. And there’s fresh evidence in the Wisconsin lawmaker’s personal and professional papers, which I was the first person to gain access to as part of researching my book, “Demagogue: The Life and Long Shadow of…
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What Trump’s “Garden of American Heroes” says about his America — and the way other countries handle their history
Standing before the graven images of four American presidents on Friday July 3, Donald Trump announced the establishment of a “National Garden of American Heroes,” an offer of further idolatry that left historians puzzled by its strange assortment of figures. At first glance, the American icons pegged for statuary treatment in the executive order declaring…
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The Forward wins big at the 2020 Rockowers
The 39th Annual Simon Rockower Awards for Excellence in Jewish Journalism, held virtually on July 3, recognized a broad swath of the Forward’s coverage, from the strange saga of a thrift store Torah to the swan song of the paper’s print edition to the infectious tunes of Hanukkah a capella. Forverts staff writer Jordan Kutzik…
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Kibbitzing with Carl Reiner at the urinal
I escaped The Bronx in the summer 1981 for a vacation that lasted seven years. I took a bus to Berkeley to visit my West Coast cousins and, once there, decided to extend my planned three-week vacation. I started bar-tending the last, last call at La Barca in San Francisco — located on Lombard and…
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In a horror master’s rare TB films, warnings for a future pandemic
Edgar Ulmer, the prolific and peripatetic film director, best known for his 1945 noir, “Detour,” spent much of his career as an exile — first from Europe and then from Hollywood. He directed Yiddish classics, such as “American Matchmaker” and “Green Fields.” In the early part of his career, he worked with F.W. Murnau, Billy…
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A look back at Beavis and Butt-Head’s best music video commentaries
Beavis and Butt-Head, those eternally immature adolescents, are returning right when we need them most — this time on Comedy Central. It’s good news, but this fan counts himself hesitant. The reboot is said to be a re-imagining of the franchise, and I’m comfortable knowing show creator Mike Judge is behind the project. But I…
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Did the Trump campaign really slap a Nazi eagle on a t-shirt?
As wrongheaded as they were in vying to keep the U.S. out of World War II, the America First Committee took great pains to avoid fetishizing fascism. While the group certainly attracted its share of anti-Semites and German American Bundists, its trick was to appear as American as apple pie when courting isolationists. That meant…
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Finally, the rarest Jewish texts from Italy will be available online
Italy has been home to Jewish communities for over two millennia, and it has been an important location for writers and scholars — as well as a major center for manuscript production and printing. That has meant a huge number of Hebrew books with tremendous historical value. For scholars, though, some of those books have…
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What to read before you stream the ‘Hamilton’ movie
On Independence Day Eve, almost anyone can get a front row seat to “Hamilton.” It’s truly an American dream. The filmed performance of the cultural juggernaut about the inaugural secretary of the Treasury will arrive on the Disney+ streaming service July 3, a year before its intended theatrical release. To celebrate the occasion of this…
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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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