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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On the northwest side of Chicago, my old Jewish neighborhood may soon live on in infamy
Albany Park was home to Rosenblum's Bookstore, Weinberg's Clothing — and also alleged DC shooter Elias Rodriguez
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Analia Bortz: Scholar Of The Human
Two weeks into medical school at the University of Buenos Aires, Analia Bortz realized she wanted to be a rabbi. “I went to the dean and said, ‘We’re learning about the liver, the heart and the lymph nodes. When do we learn about the human?’” she said. The dean told her that the big questions…
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Forward 50 | Joel Benenson: Netanyahu’s Nemesis
Before entering politics, Joel Benenson tried journalism: he worked for the New York Daily News, but found he felt strongly about the issues he was covering. So he moved in communications for Gov. Mario Cuomo’s reelection campaign in 1994, and then President Bill Clinton’s in 1996. He pioneered new research methods that helped Barack Obama…
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Forward 50 | Beatie Deutsch: Mighty mom of the marathon
So far, nothing has deterred Beatie Deutsch in her remarkable and rapid emergence as a world-class distance runner. Born and raised in the United States, Deutsch, 30, moved to Israel a decade ago and, in 2016, finished sixth in the Tel Aviv Marathon just four months after she took up running, A year later, while…
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Forward 50 | Tal Frieden: The disobedient one
Tal Shahar Frieden, 22, lives in Providence, R.I., and was one of the first organizers of of Never Again Action, a new group pursuing civil disobedience around immigration issues through a Jewish lens. Working with a local group called AMOR, Frieden and others protested the Wyatt Detention Facility in Providence to demand it cut off…
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Carin Mrotz: Justice Fighter in the Far North
As concerns about anti-Semitism on the left have grown, Carin Mrotz and her Minnesota-based organization Jewish Community Action have trained dozens of progressive activists in unconscious bias. Mrotz, in a personal capacity, also led such a training for local Rep. Ilhan Omar, whom she considers a friend. JCA’s advocacy helped strengthen tenant protection laws in…
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Forward 50 | Sheila Katz: A voice for Jewish women
Sheila Katz first made headlines this year by going public with her story of being sexually harassed by a prominent Jewish philanthropist. She told The New York Times that, in 2015, when she was an executive at Hillel International, Michael Steinhardt, a billionaire she was trying to cultivate as a donor, repeatedly asked her if…
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Forward 50 | Melina Matsoukas: The camera queen
In the music industry, Melina Matsoukas has long been a magic name. A renowned music-video director, Matsoukas, 38, whose father is Jewish and Greek, made a career of using her camera to reveal the radical undertones of pop, hip hop and R&B songs. Rihanna’s 2010 hit “S&M” was a (censored) radio favorite; the Matsoukas-directed video,…
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Kerry Brodie: Chef To Refugees
At Kerry Brodie’s restaurant, Emma’s Torch, diners can choose between coffee-crusted beef brisket and autumn squash cavatelli, red and gold beets with maple vinaigrette or brussels sprouts with chili vinegar. This is not just any autumnal menu; the restaurant is named for Emma Lazarus, the author of the poem on the base of the Statue…
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Yisroel Goldstein: The Rabbi Of Poway
On April 27, 2019, a white nationalist entered the Chabad of Poway synagogue with guns blazing, killing congregant Lori Gilbert-Kaye and wounding three others, including Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, who lost a finger. Despite being shot, Goldstein, 57, continued with his sermon, telling the community “Am Yisrael Chai.” Goldstein’s messages of Jewish pride and calls for…
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Benjamin Dreyer: Copyediting King
Benjamin Dreyer, 61, copy chief at Random House, managed to make his style guide, “Dreyer’s English,” a stunning critical and commercial success. In a genre historically associated with extreme stuffiness, Dreyer’s prose sparkles. He greets readers with a winning mix of smarts and snark — “I don’t want to write about the 19th-Century textual critic…
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Emily Mayer: The Activism Activator
IfNotNow has grown in prominence every year since its 2014 founding. But this past year proved to be its most high-profile one yet. Its campaign against Birthright Israel – planting activists to record themselves walking off the free trips – earned the group a New York Times profile. Local chapters, called “hives,” also came into…
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News A Jewish farmer drove 600 miles to rescue a century-old synagogue. Now he’s building a new one in a cornfield.
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Opinion Pete Hegseth is targeting a Jewish American hero — who’s next?
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Opinion The two things I fear most after the horrifying attack on Jews in Boulder
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Culture On the northwest side of Chicago, my old Jewish neighborhood may soon live on in infamy
In Case You Missed It
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Culture That time Yiddishists met extraterrestrials a short while ago in a galaxy not far away
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Opinion Were the attacks in Boulder and D.C. the product of ‘blood libel’? Not so fast
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News Exclusive: ADL chief compares student protesters to ISIS and al-Qaeda in address to Republican officials
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Culture In the Trump-Musk feud, both sides are united by antisemitism
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