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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On the northwest side of Chicago, my old Jewish neighborhood may soon live on in infamy
Albany Park was home to Rosenblum's Bookstore, Weinberg's Clothing — and also alleged DC shooter Elias Rodriguez
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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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Do we really need Dustin Hoffman starring in ‘Our Town?’
When Broadway finally reopens, it will be in the aftermath of a revolution. A global health pandemic and a national revolt against racism should advance efforts that theatermakers of color have been pushing for for years: inclusion and diversity in casting and production and stories that reflect their lives. The reckoning hasn’t yet reached Grover’s…
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I speak for the tribe who followed Carl Reiner
When I was growing up on Long Island, our house had a living room with orange-fabric couches (it was the 70s after all) and an upright piano flanked by two dark brown wood cabinets. On one side was a bar where my dad would have a Gin & Tonic (with a Stella D’oro breadstick) every…
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