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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Theater Jason Alexander lives out a lifelong dream, playing Tevye in ‘Fiddler on the Roof’
'I wanted to do a piece that is proudly Semitic' said the Tony winner and ‘Seinfeld' star
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Amos Oz: Israel’s Melancholy Visionary
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. I only had the opportunity to meet Amos Oz, the distinguished Israeli author who passed away on December 28 at the age of 79, on one occasion. It was in 2004, in Philadelphia. I was then on a Jewish Studies fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania, having…
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What The Hell Is ‘The Kominsky Method’?
The biggest winner at last night’s Golden Globes is a show you might have missed. Netting a Best Actor award for Michael Douglas and a Best Musical or Comedy Series statuette for creator Chuck Lorre, “The Kominsky Method” is leaving many people asking, “What the hell is that?” Well, it’s a new Netflix series starring…
The Latest
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Film & TV Don’t Let Fiji Water Girl Distract You — Fiji Water Is Super Shady
Who won this year’s red carpet at the Golden Globes? If you ask the internet, it was Kelleth Cuthbert, aka “Fiji Water girl,” a raven-haired model in a blue dress who was discreetly intrusive in offering parched celebs Fiji Water from a tray. While we can all have fun with the pretension of the bottled…
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Edgar Hilsenrath, Provocative Holocaust Novelist, Dies At 92
Edgar Hilsenrath, a German Holocaust survivor and novelist celebrated for his trenchant and satirical books on genocide and life in the Jewish ghetto, passed away Sunday at a hospital in Wittlich, Germany. He was 92. Hilsenrath was born April 2, 1926 in Liepzig to David Hilsenrath, a furrier, and Anna Hilsenrath, née Honigsberg. As he…
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The Secret Jewish History Of Captain And Tennille
In the more obscure corners of the Internet, one occasionally comes across a reference to Daryl Dragon, best known as the “Captain” in the 1970s pop group Captain and Tennille, as being half-Italian and half-Jewish. This is probably because Dragon — who died earlier this week at age 76 in Prescott, Arizona — was the…
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In Italy, A Famous Museum Is Shaming Germany For Keeping Nazi-Looted Art
The painting hung for over a century in a Florentine palace, framed against a wall covered in red silk. Petite and extraordinarily detailed, the 18th-century work shows full-blown roses and peonies spilling from a vase, surrounded by a tangle of leaves and smaller flowers. The scene suggests opulence, pleasure, ease. But the recent history of…
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The Future Of Judaism Will Need A Big Tent
The Jewish American Paradox: Embracing Choice in a Changing World By Robert H. Mnookin PublicAffairs, 308 pages, $28 Robert H. Mnookin, who is a professor at Harvard Law School and chairs its Program on Negotiation, has gotten the “changing world” part of his subtitle right. Writing before last October’s deadly anti-Semitism-inspired attack on congregants at…
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The Secret Jewish History Of Teddy Roosevelt
Teddy Roosevelt packed at least three lifetimes into his relatively short one: He died 100 years ago, on January 6, at age 60. Widely regarded as one of the greatest presidents in American history (with a bust on Mount Rushmore as proof), Roosevelt was a bestselling author; a historian; a naval strategist; a conservationist (as…
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Film & TV A Theater Gave Far-Right Germans Free Tickets To ‘Schindler’s List’ — And It Backfired
Last month, members of Alternative for Germany (AfD), Germany’s major far-right party and the largest opposition group in the country’s legislature, were offered a curious Christmas gift: Free tickets to “Schindler’s List.” They weren’t thrilled. As The New York Times reports, Cinexx, an independent theater in Hachenburg, declared it would give free admission for a…
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Film & TV All The Jewish And Jew-Ish Things That Are Public Domain In 2019
Sonny Bono was one half of the folk duo Sonny & Cher, a Republican Congressman from California and the wearer of a notable mustache. He’s less well-known for his connection to copyright law. In 1998, the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, sponsored and named by his widow, Congresswoman Mary Bono, who took her late…
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Film & TV Actor Bob Einstein, Known For Super Dave And ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm,’ Dies At 76
Bob Einstein, a staple of sketch, scripted and improvised comedy for five decades died on January 2, 2019, at the age of 76. The New York Times reports that Einstein’s manager, Lee Kernis, confirmed that the comedian had been battling cancer. Einstein, the son of comedian Harry Einstein and actress and singer Thelma Leeds, was…
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News Dutch Jews grapple with ‘weaponization’ of their fear following attack on Israelis
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News What a Secretary of State Marco Rubio would mean for American Jews and Israel
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Opinion Almost all voting groups shifted toward Trump, except American Jews. Why?
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Fast Forward ‘Antisemitic hit-and-run squads’: Amsterdam temporarily bans demonstrations after Israeli soccer fans attacked by street mobs
In Case You Missed It
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News What a Trump second presidency will mean for school prayer, campus antisemitism and other education issues Jews care — and worry — about
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Culture Has Mark Zuckerberg become the anti-Elon Musk?
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Yiddish באַקענט זיך מיטן אוקראַיִנישן איבערזעצער פֿונעם ליד „אויפֿן וועג שטייט אַ בוים“Meet the Ukrainian translator of the song ‘Afn veg shteyt a boym’
דער ייִדישער מוזיקער אָלעס וואַלינטשיק וויל ווײַזן דער וועלט די טיפֿע צונויפֿפֿלעכטונג פֿון דער ייִדישער און אוקראַיִישער קולטור.
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Culture Why is the latest Jesus movie about, uh, mixed martial arts?
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