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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EXCLUSIVE: The Soloway Siblings: Are Their Boundaries Your Triggers?
_Author’s Note: This article first appeared on January 21, 2019. Although they were already identifying as non-binary by then, their name change to Joey Soloway was still a little over a year away. To bring our interview up to date, I’ve made a few needed revisions to the original text. Growing up in the ‘70s…
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‘Tell Them We Blew The Shofar At Auschwitz,’ He Said. 75 Years Later, She Did.
75 Rosh Hashanahs ago, in 1944, the sound of a shofar rang out at Auschwitz. Very few heard it. It was Rosh Hashanah, and as the Jewish year 5704 turned into 5705, Chaskel Tydor, a Jewish work dispatcher at Auschwitz III-Monowitz, arranged for a minyan of prisoners to be sent to an isolated part of…
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Music Doubling On The Shofar: A High Holiday Jazz Story
Since I was a boy, my musical heroes have been jazz musicians — Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Lester Young, John Coltrane. My own trumpet playing was good enough to get me the solo chair in the school band, but my taste far outstripped my talent and I would never stoop to play in a band…
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In A Recently Unearthed Letter, Gandhi Says Shana Tova To An Indian Zionist
On September 1, 1939, the day the Nazis marched on Poland, Mahatma Gandhi, then the leader of the Indian Independence movement and a preacher of non-violent resistance, sat down to write a letter. “You have my good wishes for your new year,” the letter read. “How I wish the new year may mean an era…
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Q & A: How Does Impeachment Work?
Editor’s note: On September 24, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced a formal impeachment inquiry into President Trump. Here, constitutional law professor Cass Sunstein discusses what impeachment is and how it works. This interview was originally published on July 1, 2019. In 1998, with President Bill Clinton’s impeachment proceedings underway, Cass R. Sunstein, then a constitutional…
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How A Jewish Comedian Became Ukraine’s President And The Center Of Trump’s Impeachment Inquiry
Editor’s note: On September 24, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced a formal impeachment inquiry into President Trump. That announcement followed reports that Trump allegedly pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. Zelensky, a Jewish former comedian, has an unorthodox political background:…
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Joachim Gans, The First Jew In North America, Honored With Historical Marker
In 1585, some 100 men made landfall on Roanoke Island in present-day North Carolina. Sent to establish the first English North American colony, not all of the expedition’s members were English. And one, despite sailing under the auspices of the Protestant Queen Elizabeth, wasn’t even Christian. Joachim Gans, a metallurgist from Prague, may well have…
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Paul Rudd Had One Good Jewish Joke In ‘Between Two Ferns’ – And One Really Bad One
Paul Rudd gives us much to kvell over. Since “Clueless,” he has been a Nice Jewish Boy heartthrob; he’s pure, funny, talented, good-looking and scandal free. Like all the best movie stars, Rudd elevates everything he’s in. Even if you don’t like one of his performances or films, you always like him. If you are…
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WATCH: The Timeless Yiddish Love Song, ‘It’s Dark Outside’
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Adah Hetko is a Yiddish singer who adapts classic songs from the collections of ethnomusicologists such as Ruth Rubin and gives them a modern feel. In this recording, produced by the Forverts, she performs her take on the folk song “In Droysn Iz Fintster” (“It’s Dark Outside”)…
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Ian McEwan Brings Brexit To Kafka’s ‘Metamorphosis’
Jerusalem and Booker Prize-winning novelist Ian McEwan sees the current state of British politics as a touch Kafkaesque. Along those lines, he announced September 12 the release of a new novella, “The Cockroach,” which turns Kafka’s “Metamorphosis” formula on its antenna, having the titular pest transform into a human. Not just any human, the Prime…
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The Secret Jewish History Of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s ‘Beloved Infidel’
Editor’s Note: F. Scott Fitzgerald was born on this day in 1896. He’s a look back at his relationship with gossip columnist Sheilah Graham. Sheilah Graham, longtime Hollywood gossip columnist and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s lover and muse, was delighted to share her personal history, especially its romantic highlights. She wrote no fewer than 10 tell-alls….
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Culture Trump wants to honor Hannah Arendt in a ‘Garden of American Heroes.’ Is this a joke?
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Fast Forward Why the Antisemitism Awareness Act now has a religious liberty clause to protect ‘Jews killed Jesus’ statements
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Fast Forward The invitation said, ‘No Jews.’ The response from campus officials, at least, was real.
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Opinion A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on US soil. I think I know why no one objected.
In Case You Missed It
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Yiddish מחשבֿות פֿון אַן אַהיים־געקומענעם (אַ מלחמה־טאָגגבוך)Reflections of a soldier after returning home (a wartime diary)
דער מחבר איז אַ סטודענט אינעם ירושלימער העברעיִשן אוניווערסיטעט, אינעם צווייטן יאָר ייִדיש־לימוד
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Fast Forward Why the Antisemitism Awareness Act now has a religious liberty clause to protect ‘Jews killed Jesus’ statements
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News At Harvard, reports on antisemitism and anti-Palestinian bias reflect campus conflict over Israel
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Opinion Is JB Pritzker’s very Jewish toughness the key to fighting Trump?
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