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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Art
Käthe Kollwitz: Artist of the resistance
*This is the fourth in a series of stories about the work of Käthe Kollwitz and how it influenced artists, activists and collectors like Dr. Richard Simms, part of whose collection is being exhibited by the Getty Center in Los Angeles. You may find the previous articles here, here and here. In 1903, working with…
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Jerry Herman, Tony-winning composer of ‘La Cage’ and ‘Hello, Dolly,’ dies at 88
Jerry Herman, the Tony-winning composer-lyricist who gave showstoppers to Broadway’s leading ladies and vibrant voice to gay life during the AIDS crisis, died in Miami on Thursday. He was 88. Born in Manhattan, Gerald Sheldon Herman’s love affair with musical theater began when he was a young teen, after he saw Ethel Merman in “Annie…
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Made of gold, not clay: Give the world’s most valuable dreidel a spin
They didn’t make this one out of clay. A New York diamond dealer has just set a Guinness World Record for the world’s most valuable dreidel, valued at $70,000. With a hand-made body composed of 18 karat gold, symbols inlaid with diamonds and a 4.20 carat diamond at the top’s point, Estate Diamond Jewelry’s sales…
The Latest
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At an L.A. children’s museum, a universal story with Jewish origins
Directly above the Disney Store and just across from the Cheesecake Factory on the top level of the outdoor Santa Monica Place mall, the Cayton Children’s Museum looks out onto a glittering central courtyard, where the mall’s oversized Christmas tree stretches up three stories. The star-topped tip sits just above eye level with the museum’s…
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In 1913, a rabbi appeared on film for the very first time — in a Christmas movie
As the winter winds whipped through lower Manhattan in the days before Christmas in 1913, a group of rabbis took shelter in a screening room to watch a film that claimed to be about them. It was the first American movie to feature a rabbi as a character. Shortly after the screening, a report from…
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Psychedelics Pioneer And New Age Guru Ram Dass Dies At 88
Baba Ram Dass, the self-effacing guru, psychedelic evangelist and promoter of Eastern theology died December 22 at his home in Maui, Hawaii. A post on Ram Dass’s Instagram page reported his passing at the age of 88. Before Ram Dass became a best-selling New Age author, and even before he partnered with Timothy Leary in…
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Top 10 reasons it’s great being Jewish on Christmas
Top 10 Reasons It’s Great Being Jewish On Christmas #10: We love seeing Christmas lights – on other people’s homes. We haven’t climbed a ladder in years and don’t want to try it now. We save changing the burned out lightbulbs until our extra-tall son comes to visit. And we don’t have to nag our…
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News Flash For Rudy Giuliani: Jews Don’t Go To Church
In this era of astonishing news, it is still plenty astonishing to hear former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani claim that George Soros is not Jewish because — wait for it — Soros doesn’t go to church. Here’s the full quote, from New York Magazine’s Intelligencer; “Don’t tell me I’m anti-Semitic if I oppose him,”…
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Beirut: Public Sculpture Resembling Star Of David Removed After Outrage
After a spate of online outrage, Lebanese authorities have removed a sculpture from Beirut’s Martyr Square. The reason? If viewed from above, the geometric artwork appears looks like a Star of David. According to Hyperallergic, the sculpture, British artist Nathaniel Rackowe’s “LP46,” became the center of a controversy on December 15, when a photograph of…
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Meet Elizabeth Warren’s Fave Spy Novelist — A Jewish, Ex-CIA Judo Master
In a recent Rolling Stone interview, Elizabeth Warren spoke on impeachment, her family history and her one-time Republican affiliation. When asked what she does to unwind, the presidential candidate and senator from Massachusetts said she listens to fiction, specifically “The John Rain series,” which she described as “a good sort of mystery adventure.” The John…
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Books Discovering Louisa May Alcott’s Jewish history on Portuguese tour
Louisa May Alcott was often told as a child that her dark hair and dark eyes came from her Sephardic Jewish ancestry. Her mother, Abigail May Alcott, who had similar coloring, had learned this from her father, Joseph May, a late 18th-century Boston businessman whose Portuguese Jewish ancestors immigrated to Sussex, England, just before 1500….
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Most Popular
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Film & TV The new ‘Superman’ is being called anti-Israel, but does that make it pro-Palestine?
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Music ‘No matter what, I will always be a Jew.’ Billy Joel opens up about his family’s Holocaust history
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Culture She was my Hebrew school bully — and I finally learned what happened to her
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Music Remembering Ozzy Osbourne’s Jewish vow renewal
In Case You Missed It
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Culture The Melania Trump Opera House won’t change hearts and minds — not even the president’s
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Fast Forward Columbia suspends, expels and revokes diplomas of students involved in Butler Library takeover
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Fast Forward Youth wing of the Democratic Party passes amendment opposing Israel’s ‘ongoing genocide in Gaza’
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Fast Forward Top leaders resign from Friends of the IDF amid internal reckoning
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