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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Fascinated by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — and exploiting it
I don’t know if I’ve ever read a more exhausting book than Colum McCann’s “Apeirogon.” McCann, the author of, among others, the National Book Award-winning “Let the Great World Spin,” is attracted to big stories, the kind that appear to in some way encompass the world. So it’s only natural that he would, at some…
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Diagnosing Anti-Semitism as a virulent disease
Emmy Award winning documentarian Andrew Goldberg, 51, has covered many socially/historically significant topics in his films— among them, “The Armenians, A Story of Survival,” to “Proud to Serve: The Men and Women of the US Army,” to “Out in America,” to “The Iranian Americans,” — but the Jewish experience has always been close to his…
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An intimate tribute to Rachel Cowan, trailblazing rabbi
Filmmaker Paula Weiman-Kelman remembers her first private conversation with Rabbi Rachel Cowan in 1989. “We were in a hot tub on a Wexner retreat in Aspen, Colorado,” Weiman-Kelman said over the phone from her home in Israel. “She was teaching and she was just extraordinary. There’s like 12 years between us, and at that time…
The Latest
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Tony Randall at 100 — Once a Rosenberg, always a Rosenberg
The American Jewish actor Tony Randall, beloved star of the TV sitcom “The Odd Couple,” whose centenary is celebrated on February 26, was an example of a professional façade covering a persistent search for Yiddishkeit. Born Aryeh Leonard Rosenberg in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Randall was the son of Mogscha Rosenberg, an antique and objet d’art dealer…
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Auschwitz Museum objects to ‘Hunters’ over invented Nazi atrocities
The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum has accused Amazon’s Nazi revenge series “Hunters” of recklessly inventing a Holocaust atrocity. The museum’s objection came in response to a central sequence involving a grisly game of chess. In the first episode, two members of the central 1970s Nazi-hunting crew —mastermind Meyer Offerman (Al Pacino) and his protégé Jonah (Logan…
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The wonderful, horrible afterlife of Leni Riefenstahl
It’s the weekend, and you’re looking for something to watch with your family. Maybe, to broaden your horizons, something directed by a woman. So you look up the best female filmmakers of all time. The same names appear on every list: Agnés Varda, Lois Weber, Sofia Coppola, Clair Denis. And Leni Riefenstahl. Riefenstahl, who died…
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Film & TV A cult Israeli rock opera seeks cult movie success
Anti-war messages, as much electric guitar riffs, are a common theme of rock musicals from “Hair” to “American Idiot.” It’s no surprise that Israel has a peacenik rock opera, too, but you may find yourself bewildered by what it has to say. Keren Yedaya’s “Red Fields” (2019), which opens the New York Sephardic Film Festival…
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The curator of the Polish Jewish museum wins $500k award – here’s her story
In late January, Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett received a call from an unfamiliar Israeli number. It was the president of Tel Aviv University, informing her she had received an award of half a million dollars. “It’s like a TV show when they call you completely out of the blue,” said Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, the Ronald S. Lauder Chief Curator…
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About that Pete Buttigieg Bernie Sanders essay…
WRITER’S NOTE: During a February 2020 Democratic debate in Nevada, NBC’s Chuck Todd asked Mayor Pete Buttigieg about a 2000 essay he wrote in praise of Bernie Sanders. “The qualities I admired then are qualities I still respect a great deal,” Buttigieg responded. “I never said that I agree with every part of his policy…
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‘West Side Story’ is opening on Broadway. She’s 17, and leading protests against it.
Ivo van Hove’s Broadway revival of “West Side Story,” a risky reinvention of one of the 20th century’s most beloved musicals, was always supposed to make headlines. But in the final weeks of previews, as a small but committed group of protestors staged ongoing protests outside the theater, an unplanned story began to take hold….
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Why Theodor Herzl still matters
Theodor Herzl did not live to see Israel realized, but he is arguably the country’s most enduring visionary. In less than a decade, before his early death in 1904, at the age of 44, Herzl lifted the Zionist movement from obscurity to a palpable political force through his magnetism and dedication. Many Israelis and Zionists…
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