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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Mazel tov: First edition of Yiddish ‘Harry Potter’ sells out in less than 48 hours
Less than 48 hours after the Yiddish edition of “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” translated by Arun Viswanath, became available for pre-order, the book sold out its first print run of 1,000 copies. (Viswanath is Forverts editor Rukhl Schaechter’s nephew.) For a Yiddish publisher in 2020, that’s a sales number that’s almost magical. A…
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The Jewish, Polish, Mexican theater director who mentored Alejandro Iñárritu
Did you hear the one about Alejandro Iñárritu’s Jewish Polish-Mexican directing mentor? If you weren’t busy checking your Oscars ballot during the commercials on Sunday, you may have heard Iñárritu, the Academy Award-winning director of “Birdman” (2014) and “The Revenant” (2016) give a shout-out to a director named Ludwik Margules during a Rolex commercial. “Ludwik…
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At a historic Oscars, Jews from Taika Waititi to Joaquin Phoenix made their mark
The 2020 Oscars, host-less and lacking diversity, were mostly programmatic — but still packed some surprises. The night was historic, marking the first time a non-English language film has ever won Best Picture. Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite,” which also swept Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best International Feature Film, follows a have-not South Korean…
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Talking with Taika Waititi — before ‘Jojo Rabbit’
Editor’s note: Taika Waititi won the 2020 Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for “Jojo Rabbit.” But before he became a household name in the United States — he also directed the widely-beloved “Thor: Ragnarok” (2017) — he was the brightest light in filmmaking in his native New Zealand. To honor the Maori Jewish director’s groundbreaking Oscars victory,…
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Film & TV The Jewish Kirk Douglas film that everyone seems to have forgotten
The obituaries of Hollywood legend Kirk Douglas uniformly recount some of Douglas’s — and Hollywood’s — greatest films: “Spartacus,” “Paths Of Glory,” “Out Of the Past,” “Ace In the Hole,” “Lust For Life. Yet, when I think of a quintessential Kirk Douglas film it is not of any of those, but his now largely forgotten…
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Your complete Jewish guide to watching the Oscars
The 92nd Academy Awards ceremony is already a Jewish affair. Though it hasn’t been advertised, the evening is not actually hostless; Elijah is slated to Emcee — the Academy is just waiting for him to show up for dress rehearsals. We jest, but film’s biggest night still has plenty of Yiddishkeit to offer. Jewish directors,…
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Film & TV ‘Incitement’ isn’t about making Rabin’s murderer — it’s about making modern Israel
We meet the killer as he’s cleaning tombstones. While he scrapes and sponges, his radio broadcasts Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s historic Rose Garden speech announcing the signing of the first Oslo Accord. When his work is done, he leaves to join protests against the peace plan in Tel Aviv. It’s 1993. In two years, this…
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The monumental effort of translating ‘Harry Potter’ into Yiddish
Read in Yiddish. When Arun Viswanath, the Yiddish translator of J. K. Rowling’s worldwide bestseller “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” was 12 years old, he suddenly had a revelation that made him feel dejected. Although he’s a grandson of the venerable Yiddish linguist Mordkhe Schaechter, the son of the Yiddish poet Gitl Schaechter-Viswanath, and…
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Remembering Kirk Douglas — a movie legend like no other
Kirk Douglas has passed away at the age of 103. In memory of his astounding career, we reprint this tribute to the movie legend who was born Issur Danielovich to immigrant parents. Kirk Douglas was both a movie legend and a Hollywood anomaly: a star divided. Most stars lodge in our collective consciousness. Douglas, while…
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‘Vienna Blood’ is the Jewish answer to your ‘Sherlock’ craving
The latest British import to PBS, “Vienna Blood,” is not about sausage. Its title is a nod to its setting, its grisly, sanguine concerns and to a waltz and operetta (Wiener Blut) by Johann Strauss the Younger. If you already knew that last part, this show is for you. The series, based on the “Liebermann…
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He was the father of anti-Semitic publishing in America
While I was researching a 19th century Jewish immigrant, Google, in its infinite, algorithmic wisdom, brought me to a white supremacist website with a link to a book called “The American Jew: An Exposé of His Career.” The work, published in 1888, embodied anti-Semitism in its most base, rabid form: a vile portrait of dirty,…
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