Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of Jewish culture. Here, you’ll learn about the latest (and sometimes earliest) in Jewish art, music, film, theater, books as well as the secret Jewish history of everything and everyone from The Rolling Stones to…
Culture
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I have seen the future of America — in a pastrami sandwich in Queens
San Wei, which serves pastrami sandwiches along with churros and biang biang noodles, represents an immigrant's fulfillment of the American dream
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In A Classic English Comedy, A Sly Parable About Anti-Semitism
“England,” wrote George Orwell, “is the most class-ridden country under the sun. It is a land of snobbery and privilege, ruled largely by the old and silly […] A family with the wrong members in control — that, perhaps, is as near as one can come to describing England in a phrase.” That was in…
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Michael Chabon Adapting ‘Amazing Adventures Of Kavalier And Clay’ Into Miniseries
(JTA) — Kavalier and Clay are coming to Showtime. Michael Chabon’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay” will air as a miniseries next year on the premium cable network Showtime. The critically acclaimed book has been described as “an epic tale of love, war and the birth of America’s comic book…
The Latest
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The Jewish Geography Of The 2020 Golden Globe Nominees
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association is continuing its love affair with Jewish filmmakers with the 2020 Golden Globe nominees. We don’t expect that members of that outfit are particularly interested in Jewish geography, but here at the Forward, our offices are plastered with headshots connected by yards of red thread and dates of b’nai mitzvah….
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Leonard Cohen’s Last Words Summon The Spirit Of The Poet
Like an urn is full of ash, a posthumous album can often be a light, insubstantial remembrance. The survivors who release it into the wind of public opinion can count themselves lucky if the contents do not rebound onto them embarrassingly. The best case scenario is usually a brief, respectful silence and then insignificance. Things…
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Film & TV Happy 103rd Birthday To Kirk Douglas
In honor of Kirk Douglas’s 103rd birthday, we reprint this tribute to the movie legend who was born Issur Danielovich to immigrant parents. Kirk Douglas, who turns 100 on December 9, is both a movie legend and a Hollywood anomaly: a star divided. Most stars lodge in our collective consciousness. Douglas, while a first-magnitude star,…
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The Secret Jewish History Of The Rockettes
Is there anything more goyish than the Rockettes, the “precision-dance” troupe best known for its starring role in the annual “Christmas Spectacular” at Radio City Music Hall? Well, yes. As it turns out, the entire creative team behind the annual Radio City holiday event, which began in 1932, were Jewish men brought together by Samuel…
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When Tragedy Struck A Rolling Stones Festival, And The Maysles Brothers Caught It On Film
18-year-old Meredith Hunter was pronounced dead at 6:20 PM Pacific Time on December 6, 1969. His killing defined the legacy of the Altamont Free Concert in Tracy, California — which had aspired to be a Woodstock for the west coast — partially because the jarring moments that preceded it were caught on film. Charlotte Zwerin…
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Is ‘A Christmas Carol’ antisemitic?
Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol” has been variously interpreted over the years as a humanist or secular parable, a pre-Freudian psychological thriller, an old-fashioned ghost story, an anti-capitalist screed, and, yes, a Jewish story wearing the cloak of Victorian England. It has also been mined for its anti-Semitic tropes, as has other work by Dickens…
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German Activists Apologize For Stunt Using Holocaust Victims’ Ashes
A German activist art collective is apologizing for a stunt that allegedly involved the remains of Holocaust victims. On Monday, the Center for Political Beauty (ZPS) placed an oversized urn on a metal pillar close to the Reichstag in Berlin, the home of Germany’s parliament, the BBCreported. The ZPS stated that the contents of the…
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Who Are The Worst – And Best – Jewish Owners In Pro Sports?
Reports that hedge fund billionaire Steve Cohen is in talks to buythe New York Mets from the Wilpon family are likely a relief to fans of the troubled National League team. But they’re also a reminder: Jews are vastly represented among the ranks of sports owners. Out of 147 teams in the five major North…
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Happy Ladino Day — How To Celebrate An Endangered Language
Today is International Ladino Day at the University of Washington in Seattle, where the seventh annual celebration of Ladino, the mother tongue of generations of Sephardic Jews, will take place. This year’s event theme is “De la fasha asta la mortaja: From the cradle to the grave.” The celebration comes at a critical time in…
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