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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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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125 Years Later, The Dreyfus Affair Remains Unfortunately Relevant
One hundred and twenty-five years ago, on the morning of October 15, 1894, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a staff member of the French military high command, kissed his wife and children good-bye at their Paris apartment. Neither he nor his family suspected they would not again see one another for four years. Ordered to report to…
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From Poland To The USSR To Iran To Israel: A Holocaust Story
Tehran Children: A Holocaust Refugee Odyssey By Mikhal Dekel W.W. Norton & Company, 417 pages, $27.95 It was the prompting of an Iranian-American colleague at the City College of New York that stirred Mikhal Dekel’s interest in her family’s Holocaust narrative of flight, hardship and survival. Dekel’s initial idea was to collaborate on a book…
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Should We Mourn WBAI? Or Did That Time Pass Long Ago?
Is it time to say Kaddish for WBAI — or should we summon some rabbis to exorcise it? The legendary listener-supported radio station, once a counter-cultural institution that actually had an impact on the culture, finally lost its voice earlier this week. After decades of declining audience and financial support, the Pacifica Foundation, which acquired…
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Romania To Open Its First Holocaust Museum
On October 8, the eve of Yom Kippur, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis announced plans for the country’s first Holocaust museum. The announcement comes 16 years after Romania first acknowledged its role in the Shoah, following a decades-long cover-up under the communist regimes of Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej and his successor, Nicolae Ceaușescu. Many countries under the USSR…
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For Jerome Robbins At 101: The Quintessential Jewish American Genius
On May 6, 1953, Jerome Robbins was front-page news in the Forward for an act that would haunt him for the rest of his life. An above-the-fold headline — published next to an unrelated photo of a handsome young harbor boss named Francis Kelly, who appeared to be wearing lipstick — read “Acclaimed Dancer Gives…
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The New Nobel Prize In Literature Is Scandalous. Here’s Why.
In the hours since the Swedish Academy announced Olga Tokarczuk and Peter Handke as newly-minted winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature, much has been made of the contrast between then. Tokarczuk, the 2018 laureate — whose award comes a year late, after a scandal derailed 2018 committee’s deliberations — is a Polish novelist whose…
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3 Jewish Stars Played On Yom Kippur — The Same Fate Befell Them All
In the end, the three prominent Jewish players who were taking part in baseball’s postseason this week all opted to play on Yom Kippur. In the end, their decisions were not really surprising. The three — Alex Bregman of the Houston Astros, Joc Pederson of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Max Fried of the Atlanta…
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