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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They returned to summer camp — and saw the country’s political future
In 2017, a Texan governmental body voted to secede from the United States. No, it wasn’t the state’s legislature. It was a group of rebellious participants in Boys State, a summer program founded in 1935 by the American Legion that aims to inculcate the values of civil discourse in a population not known for that…
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WATCH: October 1: Still Small Voice: Talking about God in the midst of a plague
Watch here. Abigail Pogrebin, author and Forward contributor, will be joined by four of the 18 rabbis she interviewed for our recent series on God: David Wolpe of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, Angela Buchdahl of Manhattan’s Central Synagogue, David Ingber of Manhattan’s Romemu and Laura Shaw Frank of AJC. The talk will be moderated…
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Disney’s ‘Howard,’ a touching tribute to its master lyricist, leaves his work unfinished
Lyricist Howard Ashman and composer Alan Menken set off an age of rebirth for Disney Animation with their humorous, humanistic work on classics “The Little Mermaid” and “Beauty and the Beast.” Much has changed for the company since, and a distressing amount has remained the same. Like most major media companies, the House of Mouse…
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The Nazi soldier who became an English soccer star — with a rabbi’s help
It seems almost inconceivable that there was a time when we could love our enemies and they would love us back. Marcus Rosenmüller’s “The Keeper” — part of this week’s Meyerson JCC Film Center offerings, with a screening and conversation the afternoon of August 11 — is a historical film that engages the possibility that…
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WATCH: September 22: On Lox and Life
Watch here. Join Len Berk, the last Jewish lox slicer at Zabar’s, and Melissa Clark, the New York Times food writer and cookbook author, for a pre-Yom Kippur conversation about all-things-appetizing. Moderated by Jodi Rudoren, editor-in-chief of the Forward.
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Should Billy Graham — evangelist with an anti-Semitism scandal — get a statue in the Capitol?
The U.S. Capitol’s Statuary Hall, where two iconic figures from every state hold court, will soon have a new resident: A clay likeness of the late Reverend Billy Graham, the popular televangelist who brought the word of Jesus Christ to the masses through a series of high-profile “crusades,” evangelistic campaigns that saw massive rallies across…
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For National Book Lovers Day, join our next book club
It’s National Book Lovers Day, and there’s one great way to celebrate: Join the Forward’s book club! For our next set of meetings, we’re reading Fran Ross’s “Oreo.” The 1974 book, Ross’s only novel, has in recent years been hailed as an underappreciated masterpiece. Like Ross, its central character, Oreo — given name Christine Clark — is…
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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…
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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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News That whites-only, no Jews allowed Arkansas community is legal, says state’s attorney general. How?
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Film & TV How Jon Stewart evolved on Israel — at least on ‘The Daily Show’
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Opinion I have the answer to Jon Stewart’s toughest question about Israel
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