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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Israel made a gamer-friendly tank
Israel’s newest tank might be operated by an Xbox controller. The Carmel, one of three model armored vehicles in the running to be the IDF’s newest mobile weapon of war, was made to be operated by Israel’s young soldiers. As the Washington Post reports, the windowless vehicle on tank treads has an interior that looks…
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On his 73rd birthday, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s secret Jewish history
Arnold Schwarzenegger, who turns 73 on Thursday, July 30, had, at best an ambivalent and, at worst a difficult relationship with his father, Gustav. A police chief and former member of the Nazi party, Gustav was a strict disciplinarian who favored Arnold’s older brother, Meinhard. Gustav supposedly harbored doubts that he was even Arnold’s biological…
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The radical Chilean artist who depicted an America riven by repression and resistance
These days, the snipers stationed on top of the White House look out on a different view than they used to. Two months ago, before George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police sparked nationwide protests, there weren’t rows of chain-link fencing and concrete blockades enclosing Lafayette Square, the public plaza at the White…
The Latest
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Forget Seth Rogen’s Israel comments. What did he say about Orthodox Jews?
The latest episode of Marc Maron’s podcast “WTF With Marc Maron” comes with a “trigger warning” for anti-Semites. “You are REALLY not going to like this episode,” the comedian captioned his chat with Seth Rogen about the star’s upcoming movie, “An American Pickle.” But, as it turns out, Maron and Rogen ended up triggering other…
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In the Zabar’s lunchroom, an international language is spoken
You descend about 13 steps from the main floor, make a right and you’ve arrived at Zabar’s employee lunchroom. Well, it’s not exactly a lunchroom because it doesn’t have the required number of walls to be considered a room, so let’s call it a lunch area. Equipped with a large table and sufficient seating capacity,…
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WATCH NOW: September 10: The Asian secret to the world’s best challah
Watch here. If you want your challah to have a soft, fluffy crumb and a melt-in-you-mouth crust there’s one recipe that delivers it time after time: Tangzhong Challah. Join National Editor Rob Eshman and Avidan Ross as they show you the step-by-step way to adapt the Asian technique behind famous Japanese sandwich breads to your…
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Wh-why was Lin-Manuel Miranda wearing a Star of David in ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’?
Passion plays, which depict the trial and death of Jesus, have a nasty history. The Oberammergau Passion Play in Germany, for example, was famously propped up by the Nazis for its anti-Semitic caricatures of scheming priests. More recently, Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” renewed charges of deicide against the Jewish people. But the…
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‘Schitt’s Creek’ and ‘Mrs. Maisel’ lead a very Jewish Emmy outing for 2020
With 26 nominations, HBO’s “Watchmen,” a prescient superhero meditation on police violence and race in America, leads the field for the 2020 Emmys. It’s a mixed field, with a lot of recognition for actors of color and something at least approaching parity for male and female directors – though the writing categories are woefully lopsided….
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The wonderful, whimsical, interfaith family of the Muppets
In August of 1960, a young man, his wife and their eight-week-old daughter drove into Detroit in a secondhand Rolls Royce. In a moment of mischief, the man asked his friend who was tagging along to take the wheel and drive him to the center of the Motor City. There, he cracked the moonroof and…
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For Black British Jews, a walkout doesn’t solve Twitter’s anti-Semitism problem
Following a 48-hour anti-Semitic tirade from the UK musical artist Wiley, many British Jews are now participating in a two-day online walkout from Twitter under the hashtag #NoSafeSpaceForJewHate. But for some Black British Jews, caught in the middle, the boycott falls short and points to larger challenges. “Wiley has more followers than there are Jews…
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Remembering Regis Philbin’s ‘Bonkos’ time on ‘Seinfeld’
“I will never forget that silence, nor will I ever get over it,” Regis Philbin wrote in his 2011 memoir “How I Got This Way.” The moment, as Philbin describes it, was gutting. And to think it was all because of a show about nothing. Philbin, a talk show staple who began his on-camera career…
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