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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A portrait of Israel’s first family — and Israel, itself
Moshe Dayan was an icon with an eyepatch. He commanded the Jerusalem front in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, marched victorious through the Lions’ Gate in the 1967 Six Day War and served six prime ministers in matters of war and state. But he wasn’t alone either in his achievements or his eventual decline. The Dayans,…
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After Whitney row and Minneapolis outrage, Warren Kanders will stop making tear gas
Warren B. Kanders, the embattled former trustee of the Whitney Museum, will divest his company from divisions that produce tear gas, crowd-control munitions and riot equipment. Kanders, who stepped down as vice chair of the Whitney board following protests alleging that his company Safariland provided tear gas used at the U.S.-Mexico border and sponge munitions…
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MAD Magazine legend Al Jaffee folds it in at 99 — check out his last Fold-In
When it comes to comics, Fold-In king Al Jaffee has had a record-setting run. Now, the veteran cartoonist is retiring just shy of his 100th year. Jaffee, who holds the title for the longest-working comic artist of all time, worked for MAD Magazine for 65 years. In that time, he was something of a waggish…
The Latest
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Mark Cuban: Being Jewish ‘allowed me to be more empathetic’
On June 1, Mark Cuban, the Dallas Mavericks owner and “Shark Tank” staple made a direct appeal to white people on Twitter, asking them to change their ways to improve the world for people of color. Dear White People: We are the ones that need to change. This is not one man’s story. This is…
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A daughter of Vienna returns to a traumatic past — and finds her home
I Belong to Vienna: A Jewish Family’s Story of Exile and Return By Anna Goldenberg Translated from German by Alta L. Price New Vessel Press, 207 pp, $16.95 Burdened by the legacy of trauma, children of Holocaust survivors such as Eva Hoffman, Thane Rosenbaum and Art Spiegelman face the challenge of penetrating their parents’ obdurate…
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Why Christo didn’t matter — and why that matters
Christo, who passed away last month at the age of 84, had a lot in common with some other famous one-namers. Like Ozymandias, he’s remembered for building big, eye-catching things that don’t exist anymore. Like Cher, he was around for most of the back half of the 20th century and a good chunk of 21st,…
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Why Jews loved Charles Dickens — and even Fagin
When Sholem Aleichem’s stories were translated into Russian, renowned critic Alexander Amfiteatrov likened him to Charles Dickens. The great Yiddish writer balked at the comparison. “He imagines that our literature has the amplitude of English literature and can produce a Dickens!” Sholem Aleichem wrote to his son-in-law, Y.D. Berkowitz. “Were Amfiteatrov to spend even a…
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His ads changed how Jews were perceived — do they still matter?
Advertising is a form of history. That’s the overwhelming thought you get when you listen to the legendary Gary Wexler discuss his 20 years of arresting, moving, and often simply heart-stopping advertisements about Jewish community and identity that will now be an archive at the National Library of Israel. While Jewish history is often told…
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Meet the winners of The Forward’s Young Writers Contest
Can we talk about something good for a change? As headlines bombard us with stories of violence and curfews set against the backdrop of an epidemic, it’s easy to lose hope. Which is why it’s been so refreshing to step away from the unrelenting daily news cycle and read the work of young writers whose…
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What was Jewish about Jimmy Durante? More than you might think.
This year marks the fortieth anniversary of the death of the entertainer Jimmy Durante (1893-1980), whose artistry was linked with Yiddishkeit. Durante’s nickname, Schnozzola, is an American adaptation of the Yiddish slang term schnoz for nose. An able jazz pianist and endearing comedian, Durante was also capable of poignant singing. When he performed the German…
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Your top 9 Yiddish antifa anthems: a revolutionary playlist
The Yiddish roots of antifa – the anti-fascist movement whose precursors date back at least as far as opposition to the Russian czar – have been well documented. They are also enshrined in a canon of Yiddish antifa songs – songs of resistance, anarchism, revolution, and workers’ rights – that listeners might find eerily resonant…
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