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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ABC’s ‘The Baker and the Beauty’ is a half-baked remake
The epoch of coronavirus is a time of quarantined batch-baking and sourdough starter. Many are now learning that when it comes to baking, the rules of chemistry apply. Things can’t be rushed and from scratch is better than a mix. ABC’s latest soapy import, “The Baker and the Beauty,” should take a lesson. Working from…
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How Trump uses blood libel rhetoric against ‘invisible enemy’
When President Trump uses the phrase “invisible enemy” to describe the coronavirus, he is using the vocabulary of medieval libels against Jews. Once we OPEN UP OUR GREAT COUNTRY, and it will be sooner rather than later, the horror of the Invisible Enemy, except for those that sadly lost a family member or friend, must…
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The preliminary burdens of freedom
Editor’s Note: The Forward’s Youth Writing Contest is asking middle and high school students to submit essays, short stories and poems on the topic “What It Means To Be Free.” We’re still accepting entries at [email protected] — you can find the entry guidelines here.The deadline is Friday, May 1. Today, we’re proud to publish this…
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Coronavirus has made flaunting wealth taboo. What’s an influencer to do?
When Arielle Charnas developed symptoms of the novel coronavirus in mid-March, she found herself in the same boat as many New Yorkers: Sick, and scared. What happened next was less common. While the city’s medical system was even then stretched thin and tests for the virus were — as they remain — hard to come…
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Finding freedom in the epicenter of a plague
Editor’s Note: The Forward’s Youth Essay Contest is asking middle and high school students to submit essays, short stories and poems on the topic “What It Means To Be Free.” We’re still accepting entries at [email protected] — you can find the entry guidelines here.The deadline is Friday, May 1. Today, we’re proud to publish this…
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“She didn’t like it salty” — A tale from the Zabar’s lox counter
Her left arm was securely held by the health care worker who accompanied her. They approached the fish counter very slowly and carefully. With total disregard for who was next in line, she looked me in the eye and spoke. “I don’t want salty” she said in a belligerent tone. “I don’t want salty,” she…
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Joseph Feingold, survivor and documentary subject, dies at 97
Joseph Feingold, a Holocaust survivor, architect and memoirist whose gift of music brought a unique friendship to a South Bronx community died April 15 of pneumonia and COVID-19. He was 97. Jozef Fajngold was born to socialist parents on March 23, 1923 in Warsaw. His father, Aron, a carpenter, and mother Ruchele (nee Jakubowski), a…
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Bob Dylan channels Walt Whitman and Anne Frank in his new song of himself
Oops, he did it again. In the deep, dark, blackness of the night, the Mystic Oracle of Hibbing let drop a new utterance. Today, we awoke to the new sounds of Bob Dylan’s “I Contain Multitudes,” just three weeks after Dylan stunned believers and non-believers alike with a 17-minute “Waste Land”-like take on the JFK…
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What freedom means to me in the time of COVID-19
Celebrating Passover during the pandemic, I have reflected on the freedoms I have lost and those that still remain. Because of coronavirus, I have lost the freedom to go to school, to visit and hug my beloved friends and extended family, to go to my dance, violin and art classes and run on my track…
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New York’s Gathering of Remembrance goes online for Yom HaShoah
New York’s Annual Gathering of Remembrance, which commemorates Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, typically draws over 20,000 people to Manhattan’s Temple Emanu-El. This year the venue is closed due to the coronavirus pandemic, but attendance is expected to grow substantially by taking the ceremony online. “I think this year we’ll see a broader audience…
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In a masterful novel of fascism, harrowing lessons for today
Marrow and Bone By Walter Kempowski, translated from the German by Charlotte Collins New York Review Books, 208 pages, $16.95 Predictions are difficult right now. But here is what will probably happen. Officials will continue abusing and degrading their offices. The major institutions will do what they were designed to do: provide good service, efficiently,…
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