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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Q & A: How can you make a small Seder special?
Lifestyle blogger Rebekah Lowin believes in hiddur mitzvah, the Talmudic idea that while doing a mitzvah is well and good, doing it beautifully is even better. From hamentaschen cocktail toppers to DIY latke bars, the creations Lowin shares can help you live your most aesthetically pleasing Jewish life — or make you seriously insecure about…
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Daily distraction: Andrew Lloyd Webber, the Louvre and family game night
Welcome to your daily distraction, our recommendations for ways to stay engaged and entertained while we socially distance ourselves to combat the novel coronavirus outbreak. You can find our past recommendations here; many of the opportunities we’ve highlighted are ongoing. Shabbat shalom, we’re still staying at home. This week was interesting, nu? I finished watching…
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Daily distraction: Honor Adam Schlesinger, recreate a masterpiece and explore haggadot
Welcome to your daily distraction, our recommendations for ways to stay engaged and entertained while we socially distance ourselves to combat the novel coronavirus outbreak. You can find our past recommendations here; many of the opportunities we’ve highlighted are ongoing. I recently learned something that makes me feel a lot better about everything going on…
The Latest
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Music No, you’re wrong — Bob Dylan’s 17-minute song is a work of epic genius
Last week in these pages, my esteemed colleague PJ Grisar offered a devastating and at times humorous takedown of Bob Dylan’s recently released new song, “Murder Most Foul.” “[A]s with all things Dylan,” wrote Grisar, “his votaries will be paying Talmudic attention to this new text and finding a deeper meaning than I care to.”…
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Why was Freud great? Magic, says Netflix.
Sigmund Freud couldn’t help but think that he was destined for great things — and, as with so many things in his worldview, the fault lay with his mother. The future father of psychoanalysis was born with a caul, a bit of amniotic membrane attached to his head. Amalia Freud believed that its presence portended…
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Adam Schlesinger wrote the songbook of my youth — and the soundtrack for everyone else
If you were anywhere near a radio, television or movie theater in the past 25 years, you’ve heard Adam Schlesinger’s music. The songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and backing vocalist known for his longtime work in the bands Fountains of Wayne and Ivy, also wrote, co-wrote or produced hundreds of songs for film and TV. “I’ve never really…
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Daily distraction: Mixology, ‘Hamlet’ and ‘All of a Kind Family’
. Welcome to your daily distraction, our recommendations for ways to stay engaged and entertained while we socially distance ourselves to combat the novel coronavirus outbreak. You can find our past recommendations here; many of the opportunities we’ve highlighted are ongoing. We’re close to the end of our third week of social distancing. In Denver,…
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The Forward’s Youth Writing Contest: We want to hear from you!
Outside, the sun is shining but the streets are eerily empty. You seem to have more free time than ever but there seems to be less and less to do with it. School’s in session, but when you see your fellow classmates, they’re just little squares on a screen. Passover is approaching, a time when…
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Our second ‘Bread Givers’ book club discussion: Fighting for independence
Welcome to the second meeting of the Forward’s book club! Today’s meeting will take place live, over Zoom, at 2 pm EST. Please email us at [email protected] to get the link to today’s 2pm meeting! If you’re just joining us, we’re reading “Bread Givers” by Anzia Yezierska. Here’s a recap of our first reading, which…
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For lifelong scholar Carl Rheins, nothing Jewish was alien
Carl Rheins, who died on March 30, began his “Jewish Almanac” (1980) coedited with Richard Siegel, with a quote from Franz Rosenzweig: “Nothing Jewish is alien to me.” The almanac’s subject matter ranged from Regina Jonas (1902-1944), the first woman to be ordained as a rabbi, who was murdered at Auschwitz, to such comparatively light-hearted…
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The 37 unknown roles of Peter Sellers
. The original occasion for this article was a Peter Sellers retrospective at the Quad Cinema in Manhattan that was supposed to run from March 20 to March 26. For obvious reasons, that retrospective was canceled. This was frustrating, if strangely appropriate — Sellers himself was rudely “canceled” by one final heart attack, just as…
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Culture In this Holocaust story, there are few words, no swastikas, no yellow stars — just movement, passion and empathy
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