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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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…
The Latest
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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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In bringing back ‘Hunters,’ Amazon fails the test of history — and good taste
The Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Museum condemned it for welcoming “future deniers.” So did the USC Shoah Foundation. But Amazon’s “Hunters” is moving forward with a second season, all the same. Somehow, the outrage over the series’ invented Holocaust atrocities — most notably a game of deadly “human chess” — wasn’t enough to squash interest in a…
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I Was Hesitant To Write About The Holocaust — Until Toni Morrison Lit The Path
Editor’s note: This essay, originally published on August 8, 2019, was republished for the first anniversary of Toni Morrison’s death on August 5, 2020. Toni Morrison leaned forward in her chair, watching my face as she spoke. It was clear, she said, that I had a story to tell. “But this —” here she pointed…
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On Writing An Opera With Toni Morrison: ‘She Was The Voice Of The Nation’s Conscience’
Editor’s note: This Q & A, originally published on August 6, 2019, has been republished for the first anniversary of Toni Morrison’s death. On August 5, 2019, the revered novelist Toni Morrison died at age 88. News of her passing was met with grief around the globe, as writers, artists, political leaders and readers reflected…
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How a Jewish marketing whiz tried to save old-time Russian hockey
Though some knowledge of (and interest in) the national ice hockey team of the former Soviet Union (CCCP) might help you to appreciate Gabe Polsky’s new documentary, “Red Penguins,” it’s not essential. Even without a solid hockey background — for that, see Polsky’s earlier doc “Red Army” — this is an oddly fascinating story. It’s…
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