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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Trump should know better than to mess with Lesley Stahl
As you’ve undoubtedly heard by now, President Donald Trump reportedly stormed out of a room at the White House after “60 Minutes” host Lesley Stahl asked him some questions he thought were mean. As one White House staffer told the Washington Post, “The interview was not that bad…. She just had a tone he didn’t…
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At 94, Mel Brooks makes his first ever political endorsement ad
While Mel Brooks has dabbled in the local politics of a frontier town, enjoined theatergoers to join a Nazi kickline and famously proclaimed “It’s good to be king,” he’s never made a video endorsing a political candidate. Even at 94, there’s a first time for everything. On October 21, Brooks’ son Max posted his father’s…
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Aaron Sorkin’s moralizing liberal fantasy betrays the real ‘Chicago 7’
According to the lore provided to the press, the development of Aaron Sorkin’s new movie, “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” originated in 2007 when Steven Spielberg, who at the time was toying with making the film himself, summoned Sorkin to his home and urged him to write the screenplay for him. Interestingly, Sorkin had…
The Latest
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How Jeffrey Toobin might have commented on the sex scandal he created
For decades, writer and legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin has dispensed commentary on the political scandals du jour. Today, he is one. On Monday, the New Yorker suspended Toobin after he exposed himself on a staff Zoom call last week. Multiple people on the call said that Toobin, apparently believing that his video was disconnected, “switched…
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Sol LeWitt: The conceptual artist who made an app of himself
The history of conceptual art runs parallel to the history of big tech. Their peaks and valleys are the same — all you have to do is change the names and some (though not too many) of the buzzwords. Both started out as young, peripheral and idealistic as the counterculture that inspired them. Over the…
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Could Trump become the first president to flee America since Lindbergh?
This weekend, in another totally normal development, President Donald Trump floated the idea of absconding to another country. Facing dire polling and debtsand court cases set to activate should he lose a second term, he wondered aloud what he’d do if Joe Biden emerges victorious in November. “I’m not gonna feel so good,” Trump said…
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This father-daughter duo is podcasting through the pandemic — and they won’t stop until they know ‘everything’
10-year-old Rasa Smith used to feel jealous when she heard kids on the radio. “I’ll never be on a podcast,” she recalled thinking while listening to a program hosted by a fellow pre-teen. But on that front, she’s proven herself very wrong. When the pandemic shut down schools in her hometown of Missoula, Mont., Rasa,…
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Sacha Baron Cohen interviewed a Holocaust survivor for the new ‘Borat.’ Now her daughter’s suing.
(JTA) — The daughter of a late Holocaust survivor is suing to have her mother’s appearance in Sacha Baron Cohen’s upcoming “Borat” sequel removed from the film, stating that the comedy mocks “the Holocaust and Jewish culture.” Baron Cohen interviewed Judith Dim Evans earlier this year “under false pretenses with the intent of appropriating her…
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My aunt’s favorite pen pal — Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Lois Severin never spoke on the phone. They were only together a handful of times. But their 17-year correspondence fills a box in my Aunt Lois’ St. Louis home. It started in the early 1950s. Marty Ginsburg and Lois’ husband, my Uncle Phil, met at Cornell University. They were fraternity brothers….
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How Walter Winchell created this mess we’re in
Much to the dismay of his many critics, Walter Winchell, wouldn’t — and still won’t — go away. An innovator of the gossip column and early radio idol, his style was unmistakable. He was the grandson of a cantor and he introduced a novel, niggun-like rhythm to the airwaves, while in print, his non sequitur…
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WATCH NOW: December 16: An interview with Rep. Max Rose on his plans to run for Mayor of NYC
Watch the recording here. In 2018, Rose, a Jewish Democrat who was wounded in Afghanistan, stunned the nation by ousting a Republican incumbent in their Staten Island district. This November, he lost the seat as the district returned to its Republican roots. And he’s just thrown his hat into the crowded race for Mayor of…
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