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
-
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
-
Carolyn Forché, Ilya Kaminsky Among National Book Award Finalists
Finalists for the National Book Awards, winners of which will be announced on November 20, include Ilya Kaminsky, László Krasznahorkai and Carolyn Forché. Kaminsky, a Ukrainian-born Jewish poet, is nominated for “Deaf Republic,” his second full-length poetry collection. Krasznahorkai, a Jewish Hungarian novelist, is a finalist in the category of fiction in translation, for his…
-
Film & TV How I Stole Chantal Akerman’s Ideas For the Obama White House
Editor’s note: Filmmaker Chantal Akerman passed away on this date in 2015. To commemorate her life and work, we are revisiting this essay by Arun Chaudhary that speaks to Akerman’s wide-ranging impact. When I met Chantal Akerman, the famed film director whose alleged suicide was reported on October 6, I told her I was going…
The Latest
-
About That Time Jesus Fought Hitler On ‘Preacher’
The Platinum Age of television has given us has given us the Jesus-Hitler showdown we didn’t know we wanted — and it’s not even pay-per-view. Spoilers ahead. Last Sunday, on the series finale of “Preacher,” the Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen-produced AMC adaptation of Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon’s comic of the same name, the…
-
Film & TV The Secret Jewish History Of Buster Keaton
Editor’s Note: Buster Keaton was born on this day in 1895. In honor of the 124th birthday of “The Great Stone Face, we look back on Keaton’s Jewish influences and collaborators. Had it not been for Erik Weisz, the Hungarian-born, Wisconsin-raised son of a rabbi, one of the most influential film artists of all time…
-
Bob Woodward Booed At Shul For Talking Over Weinstein Reporters
On October 2 at the Sixth & I synagogue in Washington, DC, celebrated investigative journalist Bob Woodward interviewed Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, the Pulitzer-winning New York Times reporters who broke the Harvey Weinstein sex abuse story. It didn’t go so well. According to audience members who posted their reactions to social media, Woodward, whose…
-
Folksbiene Names Dominick Balletta As New Executive Director
The National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, the 104-year-old New York-based company specializing in productions of Yiddish-language drama, announced on October 3 that Dominick Balletta, a veteran of film and theater management, will be the company’s new executive director. Balletta, currently the managing director of the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville, New York, will returning to…
-
Could It Be Time For A Yiddish ‘Porgy And Bess?’
Suppose, instead of adapting the white Southerner DuBose Heyward’s 1925 novel “Porgy,” the Russian-Jewish American composer George Gershwin took on the Russian-Jewish Russian writer Isaac Babel’s 1926 play “Sunset.” Imagine a Gershwin folk opera set in a Jewish ghetto, rather than African-American slum, not populated by the poor people and criminals of Catfish Row but…
-
The Gift Nadine Gordimer Gave to Me
Editor’s Note: On this date in 1991, the author Nadine Gordimer received the Nobel Prize for Literature. To commemorate that anniversary, we return to this essay by National Jewish Book Award-winning author Kenneth Bonert, written on the occasion of Gordimer’s passing in 2014. There is one quality that is perhaps more important to a writer…
-
5 Months After His Selection, The Director Of The Polish Jewish Museum Waits To Be Reinstated – Here’s Why
When it opened in 2014, POLIN: The Museum of the History of Polish Jews, in Warsaw, was a landmark achievement. It took the participation of three separate bodies — the Polish national government, the city of Warsaw and the Association of the Jewish Historical Institute of Poland — and over 20 years of talks for…
-
Your Jewish Guide To Post-Season Baseball
Rosh Hashanah concluded at sundown on Tuesday and, almost on cue, the 2019 baseball postseason began. Make of that what you will but what is certain is that this postseason is featuring the best Jewish baseball there is. Of the 10 or so current major leaguers who are considered Jewish, four have standout talent and…
-
Film & TV For Walter Matthau On His 99th Birthday
Even his face seemed as if could slouch. The bulbous nose, the folds of skin, the eyebrows always raised, the eternal smirk that seemed to call you a schmuck even if he never spoke that word. His voice brayed and drawled, Lower East Side schmatta salesman crossed with W.C. Fields. He was the dubious wise-ass,…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
Culture Trump wants to honor Hannah Arendt in a ‘Garden of American Heroes.’ Is this a joke?
- 2
Fast Forward The invitation said, ‘No Jews.’ The response from campus officials, at least, was real.
- 3
Opinion A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on US soil. I think I know why no one objected.
- 4
Fast Forward Columbia staff receive texts asking if they’re Jewish, as government hunts antisemitic harassment on campus
In Case You Missed It
-
Opinion RFK Jr. and Trump are talking about an ‘autism registry’ — this sounds disturbingly familiar
-
Fast Forward Heavy police presence blocks anti-Israel protest in Brooklyn from reaching Jewish neighborhood
-
Yiddish קאָקני־ייִדיש“: אַ פּאָדקאַסט, אַ לשון און אַ שטײגער לעבן‘Cockney Yiddish’: A podcast, a language and a way of life
צװײ לאָנדאָנער היסטאָריקערינס לעבן אױף דאָס ייִדישע „איסט ענד“ אין אונדזער פֿאַנטאַזיע
-
Special Report Trump and Jews: The first 100 days
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
