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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Did Bob Dylan anticipate the coronavirus epidemic in these 12 songs?
In the past few weeks, Bob Dylan has released two new songs, “Murder Most Foul” and “I Contain Multitudes,” which people have combed for references to the current COVID-19 pandemic. Never mind that these songs were most likely written and recorded months if not years before the new coronavirus upended our world. But the fact…
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In the story of Henry VIII, lessons for Jews in power
Sometimes, books pair together naturally, like steak and red wine. At other times, the rhymes are harder to hear, but sound deeply and stay sticky in the brain. That’s the case with Hilary Mantel’s “Mirror and the Light” and Ruth Wisse’s “Jews and Power.” The first is about a person, the second about a people….
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Need something to listen to in quarantine? Here are our podcast picks.
Podcasts were once merely the niche hipster cousins of terrestrial radio. That changed in 2014, a decade into the form’s existence, when “This American Life” debuted its offshoot podcast “Serial,” introducing mainstream audiences to both the gripping case of Adnan Syed and the vast and democratic potential of downloadable digital audio. Now, there’s a podcast…
The Latest
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The Secret Jewish History of William Shakespeare
Editor’s Note: This story originally ran on April 23, 2018. We are revisiting it on the occasion of William Shakespeare’s 456th birthday. Had William Shakespeare never died, he would be turning 456 years old this year, which would put him in biblical territory for longevity. As it turns out, that’s not necessarily such an unusual…
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After the Holocaust, incalculable losses and jaw-dropping discoveries
House of Glass: The Story and Secrets of a Twentieth-Century Jewish Family By Hadley Freeman Simon & Schuster, 323 pages, $26 The most vivid of the characters striding through Hadley Freeman’s “House of Glass” is Alex Maguy, whose very surname is pure self-invention. Freeman’s swaggeringly self-confident great-uncle founded a fashion house and an art gallery,…
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Film & TV Palestinian actor Mohammad Bakri is stuck in Tunis: ‘This virus is the enemy of everyone’
Mohammad Bakri, the famed Israeli-born Palestinian actor and filmmaker, is, like many Israelis in the age of coronavirus, stranded abroad. Bakri is in Tunisia, where he was shooting his newest film when the pandemic hit. Tentatively titled Leila Toghader Rouha (Leila abandons her soul,) the film tells the story of a young Syrian girl forced…
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Artist Mira Lehr on Buckminster Fuller, the environment and blowing things up
In the summer of 1969, as humanity left its first footprints on the Moon, architect, futurist and inventor Buckminster Fuller was thinking about the Earth. Gathering a team of students in New York, he staged a bold experiment in global sustainability, tapping a growing concern for the planet that would culminate one year later in…
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WATCH: Homeland star Mandy Patinkin blows the shofar for Earth Day 2020
Hot off Twitter trending, “Homeland” star Mandy Patinkin is using his platform — and his considerable lung capacity — to raise awareness about climate change this Earth Day. As part of Hazon’s #SoundTheCall campaign, Patinkin blew his shofar alongside his wife, Kathryn Grody. He was one of many who joined Hazon, the largest faith-based environmental…
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The Paradox 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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In ‘Circus of Books,’ a nice Jewish couple finds success in gay porn
For nearly four decades, Karen and Barry Mason owned Circus of Books, a book and video store that was considered Los Angeles’ “center of the gay universe.” Later, they became one of the largest distributors of gay pornography in the country. Now their lives are the subject of a documentary dropping on Netflix on Wednesday,…
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For Elaine May on her 88th Birthday
Elaine May began life 88 years ago, the child of traveling players in a Yiddish theater company. She grew up acting with her parents. Later years would bring bigger venues — Broadway, Hollywood, even a pioneer Amazon Prime series — but her ethic of mishpocheh followed her through her collaborative career. Sadly, as happens in…
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