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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Itzhak Perlman at 75: Celebrating a life in music and Yiddishkeit
On August 31, Itzhak Perlman turns 75, and a new 18-CD set tribute from SONY, complements a 77-disc set from Warner Classics issued for his 70th birthday. It is time to take stock of the Tel Aviv-born violinist’s storied career. Possibly overfamiliar to audiences from his TV chat show appearances and in crossover Hollywoodiana, Perlman…
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On Tik Tok, ‘dybbuk girl’ is mashing up Jewish history and culture
Golems and teens do not typically meet outside of the Prague Ghetto, but on the popular video app Tik Tok, Dybukk.girl.03 (aka Leonora Tepper.) is making sure they do. Tepper, a high school senior in Brooklyn, started making videos as a way to combat quarantine boredom, but soon found herself a niche and a following…
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He collaborated with Leonard Bernstein, Allen Ginsberg and Captain Beefheart — can you name this guitarist?
Born in 1952, the eclectic American Jewish guitarist Gary Lucas has collaborated in performance with Captain Beefheart’s band and Jeff Buckley, but also with Leonard Bernstein, and Allen Ginsberg. Anticipating the release early next year of “The Essential Gary Lucas,” a 2-CD retrospective from Knitting Factory Records, the Syracuse-born musician has regaled fans during the…
The Latest
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Books Out of a stereotype of beauty, Elena Ferrante has created something beautiful
Halfway through Elena Ferrante’s new novel, “The Lying Life of Adults,” the narrator, a teenage girl named Giovanna, runs into a priest. Don Giacomo has fallen into disfavor at his church. Previously buoyant, his skin has turned sallow, and a mysterious, violet rash is creeping over one of his hands. Giovanna, ever curious, asks Giacomo…
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Music Why Trump has to stop playing ‘God Bless America’ and ‘Hallelujah’
Leonard Cohen died, poetically enough, the day before early returns ushered in the era of Trump in America. That meant the lifelong Canadian national, who made his home in Los Angeles, was spared the Trump presidency. He didn’t have to endure Kate McKinnon’s cloyingly despairing rendition of his song “Hallelujah” performed in character as Hillary…
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How Scooby-Doo became TV’s most Jewish cartoon dog
The American Jewish animator and producer Joe Ruby, who co-created the TV series character Scooby-Doo, died on August 26 at age 87. His family announced in The Los Angeles Times the following day that Ruby’s “Jewish faith played an increasingly important role in his life, and Joe was bar mitzvahed at the age of thirty-nine.”…
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Playwright David Adjmi takes on a new role: Memoirist
On a sweltering day in New York, and a milder one in Los Angeles, David Adjmi moved our Facetime conversation up to his terrace and showed me the view: trees and white facades melting into the greenery of the Hollywood Hills. “Can you see it?” Adjmi asked. “Isn’t that pretty? This is why I like…
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Mr. Kushner, your privilege is showing
Jared Kushner dunking on NBA players for being wealthy and entitled is about as rich as he is. In a morning interview with CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” Kushner was asked for the White House’s take on plans by NBA players to boycott playoff games in protest over the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wis….
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Bill and Ted’s creators on ‘Face the Music’ and tikkun olam
The world changed in 1991. At the San Dimas Battle of the Bands, William S. Preston, Esq. and Theodore Logan, backed by Death on upright bass, two aliens on bongos and robot back-up-dancer doppelgangers united the world in song and changed the course of history forever. Or so we thought. For Ed Solomon and Chris…
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Arnold Spielberg — engineering pioneer, father of Steven — dies at 103
Arnold Meyer Spielberg, who died on August 25 at age 103, was more than just the father of celebrated film director Steven Spielberg. Born in Cincinnati to a family of Ukrainian Jewish origin, Arnold Spielberg grew up to be an electrical engineer of uncommon invention and productivity. He developed research that would make the personal…
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Is suburbia the American dream — or its worst nightmare?
On the very first page of “The Sprawl: Reconsidering the Weird American Suburbs,” author Jason Diamond describes feeling ambivalent about admitting you’re from the suburbs. “If you’re from Long Island … you’ll tell anyone who asks you’re from New York,” he writes, to which I reply, “Guilty as charged.” Diamond himself has always claimed Chicago…
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