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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Why Trump’s ‘foreign virus’ speech is as dangerous as coronavirus itself
President Trump’s speech on what he called a “foreign virus” left the overwhelming impression that foreigners are the virus. The President’s disturbing phrasing echoed centuries of dangerous anti-Semitic rhetoric blaming Jews for widespread disease. Take a close look at this sentence, which Chris Cillizza of CNN had to tweet out for those who couldn’t believe…
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Music The Secret Jewish History of James Taylor
Editor’s Note: This story was originally published in the Forward on August 3, 2015. This past June, James Taylor finally achieved a feat that had eluded the folk-pop singer-songwriter for the past 45 years or so: His new album, “Before This World,” shot to No. 1 in its first week of release. The last time…
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How my father’s photos changed a changing world
My father, Arthur Rothstein, was a social documentary photographer. In the Jewish tradition of tikkun olam, he used his camera to bring attention to problems in society, taking social action in the pursuit of social justice, doing what he could to help repair the world. His parents had been forced from their homes in Europe…
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As coronavirus fears escalate, Broadway goes affordable
The spread of coronavirus has sent financial markets into turmoil, closed Harvard University and emptied supermarket shelves of surgical masks and hand sanitizer. It’s also forced Broadway to do something unprecedented: Sell reasonably-priced tickets. Scott Rudin, one of Broadway’s biggest producers, has slashed the price of all remaining tickets for his five Broadway shows to…
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What to watch if you’re quarantined with coronavirus
With coronavirus cases on the rise and over 2,000 people in quarantine in New York City alone, it’s looking increasingly likely that many of us will have to spend some quality time at home in the next few weeks. Wondering how not to go crazy while eating canned goods in your closet-sized bedroom? The answer,…
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Art The radical transformation of Madame D’Ora
Can an art show be fascinating without containing a single truly fascinating artwork? The Dora Kallmus exhibit at the Neue Galerie in Manhattan is full of competent, uneccentric photographs of eccentric geniuses from the early 20th century: Gustav Klimt, Colette, Josephine Baker, Picasso. Just as the show seems to be running out of famous faces,…
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When Max von Sydow entertained Holocaust survivors
Actor Max von Sydow was not Jewish or German, and yet, through much of his English-language film career he played Holocaust survivors or Nazis. A favorite of Ingmar Bergman, the Swedish performer, who died March 8 at the age of 90, was a presence in film from his time in “The Seventh Seal” and “The…
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What does the Bible say about quarantine?
In recent weeks, the Jewish community has been hit hard by the novel coronavirus. The good news is, we’re old hands at dealing with quarantines. Our history with the practice of self-isolation began during our trip out of Egypt to the Promised Land, where Moses was our first public health official. In Leviticus, Moses, giving…
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Film & TV Spock’s Jewish-Vulcan gesture is the way we should greet each other today
No handshakes. No Italian abbracci (hugs) and certainly no French bises (kisses on the cheek). Be sure to keep your distance from others. As the novel coronavirus continues ravaging the planet, actor George Takei, who rose to fame playing Sulu on “Star Trek,” has an idea for an acceptable greeting that won’t spread the deadly…
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Woody Allen memoir canceled after publisher’s staff walk out in protest
Updated, 4:26 pm After approximately 75 staff members of the staff at Hachette Book Group staged a walk-out protest on Thursday, the publisher has canceled its plans to publish Woody Allen’s memoir “Apropos of Nothing.” The news was broken by Publishers Weekly. BREAKING: In a statement, Hachette Book Group has announced that it will not…
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How Dorothea Lange invented the American West
There is no American West without state-funded photography. I don’t mean the Old West of cowboys and wagon trails but the West as it shows up in today’s discourse: a dead heartland preserved in sepia like a body in formaldehyde, a place both pre-industrial and past its prime, whose glory can only be felt as…
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