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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The Secret Jewish History Of ‘Casablanca’ And Rick Blaine
Murray Burnett was shaken by what he witnessed in Europe during the summer of 1938, so when the high school English teacher and aspiring writer returned home to New York in early September, he felt compelled to write a play about his fellow Jews forced to flee Nazi terror. He was also convinced that a…
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Theater Ricky Jay Performs His Final Vanishing Act
The American Jewish magician Ricky Jay, who died on November 24 at age 72, achieved an unusual conjuring trick while still in his teens; he managed to make his parents disappear from his life. Born Richard Jay Potash in Brooklyn and raised in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Jay had parents ill-suited to the sort of obsessive,…
The Latest
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60 Years After The Holocaust, A Viennese Son Returned Home
It was a sunny afternoon in March 2003. Birds were singing outside, and the first flowers had just started to blossom on our quiet street in Vienna. At that time, I lived in an old apartment built around the turn of the past century, with high windows and even higher ceilings. It was located in…
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Music The Secret Jewish History Of The Weavers
The Weavers, an American folk music quartet, sold millions of records in the late 1940s and early 50s. Its two Jewish performers, Ronnie Gilbert, Fred Hellerman, were joined by two non-Jews, Lee Hays and Pete Seeger. In the 1960s, Bernie Krause, another American Jewish singer, replaced Seeger in the group. Their hits included “Goodnight, Irene”…
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Film & TV ‘Hanukkah: A Festival Of deLights’ Reveals The Rise Of A Family Holiday In America
Filmmaker David Anton’s latest documentary for PBS is, like its subject, a family affair. Anton filmed “Hanukkah: A Festival of deLights” an hour-long special premiering Sunday November 25 on New York’s WLIW, with his father, retired rabbi Marvin Antonofsky, interviewing most of the movie’s subjects. “For me to be able to do a project like…
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Art Roman Vishniac’s Photographs Will Move West To UC Berkeley
The photographer Roman Vishniac resettled many times. Born in St. Petersburg, he fled to Berlin in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution; in the 1930s he returned to Eastern Europe to document shtetl life; and he ultimately fled from Germany in the 1940s to live in New York, where the bulk of his photographs have…
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Check Out The New Song From ‘Hamilton’ With Music By John Kander
For all of its many merits “Hamilton” doesn’t have much to offer fans of good old fashioned show tunes. Leave it to legendary “Cabaret” composer John Kander, one half of Jewish duo Kander and Ebb, to remedy that. In one of his trademark #HamilDrops show creator Lin-Manuel Miranda released a brand new Hamilton-themed song for…
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The Most Notable Jewish Books Of The Year
The books of 2018 brought fresh perspectives, vital voices and new ways to examine questions of identity, history and even literature itself. And many of the best were authored by members of the tribe. Admittedly, we’re a bit biased, so don’t take our word for it: Look to The New York Times Book Review, which…
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Steven Berkoff Is Writing A Harvey Weinstein Play — And He Wants To Star
Actor and playwright Steven Berkoff wants to stage and star in a production of “Harvey.” No, not the 1944 Mary Chase comedy about an invisible six-foot-tall rabbit, but a new, one-act, one-man show about the very visible movie mogul and alleged sex offender Harvey Weinstein. “I like evil people,” Berkoff said in a November 20…
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Daniel Kahn’s Dark Album Is Perfect For Dark Times
“The Butcher’s Share,” the new album by Yiddish-punk outfit Daniel Kahn & The Painted Bird, could hardly be more timely. Drawing from and building upon the great tradition of Yiddish songs of resistance – partisan songs, worker’s anthems, gangster ballads – Kahn’s latest album speaks directly to the urgent political challenges of our time and…
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Why Thankfulness And Gratitude Are Jewish Emotions
For most of my life, I didn’t consider gratitude a particularly Jewish emotion. Quite the contrary. I grew up a secular Jew, my cultural knowledge filtered through Neil Simon and Philip Roth more than the Talmud or rabbis. So to me, anxiety, guilt, resentment, constant nervousness about diseases like sciatica and bursitis — those were…
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