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 NOW: September 8: Fiction is Stranger
Watch here. Michael Oren, the award-winning historian turned politician who served as Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., a member of the Knesset and a deputy minister, is publishing a new book of short stories, “The Night Archer.” Watch Jodi Rudoren, editor of The Forward, for a conversation with Ambassador Oren on the differences between America…
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Why Dorothy Parker’s ashes were interred at the NAACP headquarters
When it came to Dorothy Parker’s ashes, she left no instructions, save an epigrammatic epitaph: “Excuse my dust.” But in 1988, over 20 years after her death at 73 from a heart attack (following four suicide attempts), the remains of the rapier-witted New York writer who spent so much of her life changing residences, found…
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The secret Jewish history of Santana
Carlos Santana isn’t Jewish. But that doesn’t stop the Latin-rock bandleader and guitar hero — who turns 73 on Monday, July 20, 2020 — from speculating on his Jewish roots, performing in Israel, peppering his dialogue with choice bits of Yiddish, or conversing with a Kabbalistic angel. Santana, whose million-selling namesake band was founded in…
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In 1960, Clifford Odets wrote his final film — for Elvis
Editor’s Note: Clifford Odets was born on this day in 1906. To commemorate that date, we return to the odd story of how the playwright found himself writing a screenplay for Elvis Presley. Wise men say only fools rush in to a vanity film project for a singer of limited acting ability. That didn’t stop…
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Zac Efron wants to tell you how to live sustainably. You probably shouldn’t let him.
Last weekend, Netflix made the fantasy of every millennial woman who raised her hand too much in middle school a reality: Now, whenever we want to, we can watch Zac Efron listen with bated breath while a confident and qualified female scientist whispers facts about her chosen field in his ear. It’s a gray afternoon…
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Books Remembering Israeli Literature’s Only Nobel Laureate
Shai Agnon was born on this day in 1888. To commemorate that auspicious day, we return to this story, originally published in 2013, about Israel’s only Nobel laureate for literature. Sitting in a lecture hall in the Talpiot section of Jerusalem, a group of 25 immigrants is discussing “A City and Its Fullness” (“Ir U’meloah”…
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How Woodstock revolutionized art — a story that has nothing to do with a music festival
At the end of the 60s, for reasons that had nothing to do with Jimi Hendrix, the town of Woodstock, N.Y. changed the course of American culture. By the first day of the Woodstock Music & Art Festival — which didn’t even take place in the town it’s named for, and was more retrospect than…
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We should talk about the Jewish backstory of ‘All About Eve’
This year marks the 70th anniversary of “All About Eve,” the landmark screen drama with a backstory that implies how risky Jewish identity, whether overt or repressed, could be circa 1950. Written and directed by the American Jewish filmmaker Joseph L. Mankiewicz, “All About Eve” was adapted from a short story inspired by an ambitious…
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In a Polish Netflix thriller, undercurrents of The Holocaust
In the proliferation of Jewish-themed shows on streaming services, one in particular has not gotten the attention it deserves. The omission is surprising given that it is an excellent six-part thriller in which Jewish themes run deep. “The Woods,” currently on Netflix, is an adaptation of a 2007 novel of the same name by the…
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Music Woody Guthrie’s Jewish Soul And The Tale Of A Tulsa Tallis
Editor’s Note: Woody Guthrie was born on this day in 1912. In honor of that illustrious date, we are repubilshing this story that touches on Guthrie’s Jewish history. In the summer of 2014, on the strength of a BMI-Woody Guthrie Fellowship, I spent a glorious few weeks researching in the archives in the Woody Guthrie…
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Why Jewish music should take a lesson from heavy metal
Why is it that we never hear Jewish songs about the story of Cain and Abel? A number of years ago I listened to a song called “Chapter Four” by one of the greatest modern metal bands, Avenged Sevenfold. The song describes the rivalry between two brothers, one “born of light” and the other “black…
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Culture I come from a long line of Jewish Bundists. Now, Molly Crabapple is part of our family.
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Opinion American Jews have a Hasan Piker problem. Solving it is going to hurt
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Fast Forward 200+ Bnei Menashe immigrate to Israel from India, the first to make the journey in years
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Yiddish װאָס קען מען זיך אָפּלערנען פֿון מאָלי קראַבעפּלס בוך װעגן „בונד“?What can we learn from Molly Crabapple’s book about the Bund?
דאָס בוך איז גרונטיק געפֿאָרשט, לעבעדיק אָנגעשריבן — אָבער אידעאָלאָגיש באַפֿאַרבט