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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An Ace Reporter Brought Down Gary Hart. He’s Not Happy With A Film About The Scandal
While Hugh Jackman is attracting Oscars buzz for playing Gary Hart in “The Frontrunner,” another actor’s performance in the film is receiving some unwanted attention. Based on the book “All the Truth Is Out: The Week Politics Went Tabloid” by journalist Matt Bai, the film, directed by Jason Reitman, includes a number of characters based…
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Music WATCH: Zero Mostel Sings A Yiddish Classic
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. After four years of scouring Youtube for Yiddish-language videos to feature in the Forverts’ weekly cultural supplement Oneg Shabes, I thought that I had pretty much found them all. Luckily, there are still some treasures out there to be uncovered. Case in point: Rokhl Kafrissen recently posted…
The Latest
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The Secret Jewish History Of Connie Francis
Last April, Stereogum – an online indie music magazine — referred to Connie Francis as “a Jewish singer from New Jersey who came up working with Brill Building songwriters.” They got it half-right, anyway. Francis, who turns 80 on December 12, was born Concetta Rosa Maria Franconero to solidly Italian-American parents in Newark. Early in…
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Is This The Unacceptable Face Of Disney?
Disney songs are apparently too toxic for Princeton students. Last week the Princeton Tigertones, an all-male a cappella group whose performances for years have featured the Disney movie song “Kiss the Girl,” yanked it from its act after a piece in the student paper accused the lyrics of promoting “toxic masculinity.” Also last week, the…
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Film & TV Hey Spielberg, Want To Win At The Box Office? Cast A Woman As Your Lead.
Women may have more earning power than men at the box office. According to a new report from the Creative Artists Agency and tech company shift7, the top films of 2014 through 2017 that had females in lead roles outperformed male-led ones. The New York Times reports that the CAA and shift7 came together through…
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Honoring The Legends Of The Maccabiah Games
Jane Katz was wearing red. But she remembers the first jacket she wore at the Maccabiah Games — it was made for a man. This was not a good idea to the pioneering athlete. “I believe the first Title IX really began at the Maccabiah Games,” she said, good-naturedly at a remarkable and unusual New…
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Art How A German Art Collective Got Neo-Nazis To Identify Themselves
Following this August’s far-right rallies in Chemnitz, Germany, many participants got off easy. Of the estimated 7,000 attendees, many of whom were caught using illegal Nazi salutes and accosting immigrants, nearly all evaded arrest and, crucially, identification. Now, The Daily Beast reports that an effort by the German leftist art group the Center for Political…
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Art The NRA Will Remove Anish Kapoor’s ‘Cloud Gate’ From Its Scare Ad
The National Rifle Association has removed an image of Anish Kapoor’s sculpture, “Cloud Gate” from an advertisement that, according to the Genesis Award-winning artist, “perverts everything that ‘Cloud Gate’ — and America — stands for.” The removal follows a legal battle that began this summer The Guardian reports. The one-minute ad titled “The Clenched Fist…
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Google’s Celebrating Nelly Sachs’ Birthday — Here’s What You Should Know About Her
If you are one of the 3.5 billion people who use Google.com today, you’ll see a somewhat cryptic Google Doodle of a typewriter in front of two cityscapes. That’s because December 10 marks the 127th birthday of Nelly Sachs, a German-born Jewish poet and refugee to Sweden who was honored by her adoptive country with…
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Film & TV What’s Wrong With ‘Schindler’s List?’ Kind Of A Lot
Now that “Schindler’s List,” Steven Spielberg’s Oscar-winning 1993 film, is being rereleased 25 years after its premiere and nearly two months after the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in US history, it’s probably time to revisit the second opinions. At the time of the film’s initial release, detractors in the Jewish community were many. So many in…
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Music Drake Leads The Jews In The 2019 Grammy Nominations
If you’re one Aubrey Graham — known to the masses by the mononym Drake — you may be wondering how you could outdo yourself this year. In January of 2018, after two solid years fueling countless internet memes with “Hotline Bling,” you were nominated for five Grammys and won two. How could your 2019 be…
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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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Fast Forward Trump AG nominee Matt Gaetz has left a trail of antisemitic comments
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Fast Forward ‘Antisemitic hit-and-run squads’: Amsterdam temporarily bans demonstrations after Israeli soccer fans attacked by street mobs
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