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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That time Yiddishists met extraterrestrials a short while ago in a galaxy not far away
It was a normal summer internship at the Yiddish Book Center ... until the Jedi invaded our turf
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Why Zoom means boom time for Ladino
A remarkable class in Ladino — held entirely online on Zoom — is attracting hundreds of people from around the world, all using the time locked down at home to take advantage of a rare and free course offered through the Sephardic Jewish Brotherhood of America’s digital academy. Ladino is one of the most important…
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Coronavirus makes May Day a moment for radical action — and hope
On May 1, employees at several major companies, including Amazon, Whole Foods, Target and Instacart, will stage a one-day walkout. At the same time, tenants in cities across the United States will begin a rent strike, predicted to be one of the largest the country has ever seen. The workers’ concerns: Lack of adequate paid…
The Latest
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Freedom is sacrifice
Editor’s Note: The Forward’s Youth Writing Contest is asking middle and high school students to submit essays, short stories and poems on the topic “What It Means To Be Free.” We’re still accepting entries at [email protected] — you can find the entry guidelines here.The deadline is Friday, May 1. Today, we’re proud to publish this…
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WATCH NOW: Virtual Conversation: Coupling in Quarantine
Watch the recording here. All of a sudden the rules of dating and relationships have changed, and the partner that you were complaining you never got to see is now in your space constantly. Join David Yarus, founder of JSwipe, the largest Jewish dating app; Rayna Greenberg, social influencer and podcast co-host of “Girls Gotta…
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75 years later, Hitler’s suicide remembered — by those in the bunker
75 years ago, in a cramped Berlin bunker, Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun, his bride of one day, consumed cyanide tablets. Then, the Führer of Nazi Germany, who terrorized the world for nearly six years. shot himself in the head. The Russian Army was advancing and Germany was overwhelmed. Their deaths were hardly a surprise….
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Did Pope Pius XII lie to the U.S. government about the Holocaust?
Last month, the Vatican admitted a select group of scholars to review Pope Pius XII’s papers for the first time ever. The researchers came to address a central question of Pius’ legacy: Why did the pontiff, who led the Catholic Church during World War II, appear to remain silent as the Nazis slaughtered Europe’s Jewry?…
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The suicide epidemic of World War II
“Promise Me You’ll Shoot Yourself:” The Mass Suicide of Ordinary Germans in 1945 By Florian Huber; translated by Imogen Taylor Little, Brown Spark, 304 pages, $29 For Nazi Germany’s shattered populace, the spring of 1945 brought the apocalypse. Allied bombs had leveled German cities, and the country’s armed forces were in retreat. The advance of…
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Everything “Unorthodox” gets wrong about being Orthodox
The recent Netflix series “Unorthodox” portrays a young Satmar woman, Esty Shapiro (Shira Haas), who decides to up and leave the Hasidic religious community in Brooklyn for a better, secular life in Berlin. Unsurprisingly, it displays the Satmar community, and especially her husband, Yaakov/Yanky (Amit Rahav), as rigid, patriarchal and hopeless. I found the series…
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When Gloria Steinem and Phyllis Schlafly battled for the American soul
“Mrs. America” begins with a cake. It’s a fluffy, gorgeous dome of meringue, left isolated and static on the screen before being shuttled into a crowded political fundraiser. At the fundraiser, the wives of the local elite put on a fashion show; backstage, they chat unhappily about the threat of “women’s libbers.” That housewives-versus-libbers clash…
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Jenji Kohan to debut a ‘Social Distance’ anthology for Netflix
We may not have to wait for the end of the COVID-19 era to get an anthology series about it. Jenji Kohan, creator of “Orange Is the New Black” is developing a show called “Social Distance,” Deadline reported. The Netflix offering will be produced virtually for reasons of public health and will present narratives delving…
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Film & TV What to watch after ‘Unorthodox’
It’s been a month and we’re still talking about “Unorthodox.” Well, “talking” may be too tame a word. Debating, analyzing, nitpicking and making valid, important points about the series’ merits and potential harms. And while there’s much that remains to be said about the Netflix show (several million Jews, who knows how many opinions), there…
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