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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On Mars, A Jewish Quest For Life — And A Crater’s Tragic History
The discovery of life on Mars has been the stuff of scientific hope and speculative fascination for generations. Edgar Rice Burroughs put John Carter there, Ray Bradbury spun fantastic tales from the imagined landscapes of its dusty soil and, in 1976, NASA landed its two Viking spacecrafts on the Red Planet, making them the first…
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Art Art In Jerusalem Matters— 6 Biennale Artists Tell Us Why
The fourth Biennale for Contemporary Jewish Art is currently being held in Jerusalem, featuring the work of 200 artists in 30 exhibitions. The theme of this year’s Biennale is “For Heaven’s Sake,” and it centers on the Jewish penchant for discussion and argument. In that spirit, the Forward reached out to a half-dozen artists in…
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Will This Astronaut Be The First Woman (And First Jew) To Walk On The Moon?
On October 18, the first all-female spacewalk in history will take place about 240 miles from Earth. One of the women walking is a member of the tribe – and may turn out to be the first woman (and first Jew) to walk on the moon. NASA tweeted on Monday that astronauts Christina Koch and…
The Latest
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Books Jewish Groups Try To Silence Storytime Reading Of ‘P Is For Palestine’
Jewish groups have issued a legal threat against a public library in New Jersey if librarians proceed with a public reading of a book called “P is for Palestine,” the Bridgewater Courier News reported Monday. The two groups – the Central Jersey Jewish Public Affairs Committee and the Zachor Legal Institute, a legal group that…
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‘Big Mouth’ Mouths Off To Anti-Semites In Its Third Season
The new season of Netflix’s “Big Mouth,” the subversive-in-the-extreme sex-ed show about middle schoolers’ animated adventures in puberty, features the following: The ghost of Harry Houdini; a mist of vape smoke blown into the shape of a Magen David; Neo-Nazis and falsely philo-Semitic Evangelicals; a Passover episode involving incest; a bachelorette party game where you…
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The Classical Trouble With Daniel Mendelsohn
Ecstasy and Terror By Daniel Mendelsohn New York Review Books, 378 pp, $18.95 With Daniel Mendelsohn, there’s always a classics analogy. Magazine editors, let us say, then, are like Roman emperors: the longer their reigns, the more frantic the reshuffling of power that follows. Robert B. Silvers edited The New York Review of Books from…
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From the Archives: Sukkot Through the Ages
Before Jews could post about #Sukkot on Instagram, they saw it documented in our pages. From tenements in New York to small towns in Poland and Algeria, the Forward’s cameras have roamed the world for over a century, capturing the observance of ancient rites in growing Jewish communities. This year, we’ve combed the archives to…
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From The Archive: Portrait Of Harold Bloom As A Young Man
It’s hard to imagine the legendary literary critic Harold Bloom, who died Monday at the age of 89, as a young man. This was largely by design. Bloom playfully projected the aura of a musty, Falstaffian ancient. But, before he became an expert on the English canon, his first language was Yiddish, and like many…
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Why Those Arrested Giuliani Associates Were Talking About Anatevka
The saga of the two Soviet-born associates of Rudy Giuliani, arrested last week for alleged campaign finance violations, has a head-scratching footnote connected to both Yiddishkeit and a classic American Broadway musical. As the news of the indictments of Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman spread, so did a video of the two men lounging with…
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Remembering Harold Bloom — Lover Of Literature, Defender Of The Western Canon
Harold Bloom, the American Jewish literary critic, has died at the age of 89. During his extremely prolific career, his audience was split between adulation and obloquy. His landmark books speak for themselves, including “The Anxiety of Influence” (1973),, “A Map of Misreading” (1975), “Agon (1982), “Ruin the Sacred Truths: Poetry and Belief from the…
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This Sukkot, This Artist Invited Superheroes To His Sukkah
Every Sukkot, families with sukkahs invite the spirits of the seven biblical matriarchs and patriarchs into their tent. These guests – or ushpizin – cut impressive figures. While we earthly chosen spend our time schmoozing outdoors, kvetching and noshing and pontificating on all manner of mundane things, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Rebekah, Leah and Rachel…
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