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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This Independence, Day Read Up On Irving Berlin, Hotdogs And The Impeachment Clause
On Thursday July 4, our plucky republic marks 243 years of independence. For those celebrating, the holiday offers a day of introspection in which to consider our country’s path through history — and also fireworks and hotdogs. If you’re looking to fill your day with some compelling reading material with a Jewish bent, the Forward…
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Woody Allen Directs His First Opera At La Scala
Woody Allen had a night at the opera on July 2, premiering his production of Giacomo Puccini’s “Gianni Schicchi” at Milan’s famed La Scala opera house. “I didn’t know if I had any ability to do this sort of thing,” Allen told the Associated Press of his first go at directing opera. “I had done…
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How Franz Kafka’s ‘Metamorphosis’ Anticipated The Holocaust
Editor’s Note: Franz Kafka was born on this day, July 3, 1883. Anne Roiphe examines the prescience of the author’s “Metamorphosis.” ‘As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.” The famous first line of this haunting tale is hard to forget and painful…
The Latest
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A Case Of Blood Libel In Chicago
The accusation against Herris Kahn was a fleeting event in a far corner of Chicago. If not for the reporting in a foreign-language journal and a local newspaper, the story might be completely forgotten by now, a century later. Neither the Tribune nor any of the city’s other six dailies gave it even a sentence….
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For July 4, Irving Berlin’s most American song
I have always been dubious of the idea of “American Culture.” America, being, since its inception, a land of immigrants constantly in demographic and ethnic flux. And this is a good thing, indeed, the idea of a country founded upon legal and philosophical principles, as opposed to ethnic or linguistic concerns, is the fundamental promise…
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A Nice Jewish Guy Built A Booming Fireworks Business. Then the Tsarnaev Brothers Walked In.
The fireworks industry in America is dominated almost entirely by big-name, old-time Italian families whose grandfathers and great-grandfathers mastered the craft in Italy and brought that knowledge to the United States. There are the Zambellis of New Castle, Pennsylvania; the Rozzis of Cincinnati, and the Cartolanos of Chicago. The Grucci family, based in New York…
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7 Arrested After Anish Kapoor’s ‘Cloud Gate’ Found Vandalized
Seven people were arrested early Tuesday morning after graffiti was discovered on Anish Kapoor’s “Cloud Gate” sculpture in Chicago’s Millennium Park. Police responding to a trespassing call arrived at the park shortly after midnight and found that the sculpture, known colloquially as “The Bean,” had been tagged with white spray paint CBS Chicago reported. The…
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Neil Gaiman’s ‘The Sandman’ Gets Netflix Series Order
The miniseries adaptation of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s “Good Omens” made amusing headlines in June when a group of concerned Christians petitioned Netflix to cancel the show for portraying its main characters — an angel and a devil — as friends and depicting the Antichrist as a “normal kid.” There was only one problem:…
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‘The Seinfeld Chronicles’ Turns 30 — But Maybe We Should Wait To Celebrate
My mother recorded every episode of “Seinfeld” on VHS; she thought the show would never last and wanted to document its brief existence. 30 years ago, in July of 1989, her estimation appeared to be correct. Based on the performance of “The Seinfeld Chronicles,” the tepidly-received pilot of Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David’s show about…
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How Immigrant Jews Learned that Marrying for Love Would Make Them American
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Baltimore’s Moses Montefiore Congregation was the site of a most unusual wedding on October 12, 1902. The festivities began in ordinary fashion as guests gathered to attend the nuptials of Marie Roypen and Samuel Oren, two young Jewish immigrants. However, the wedding quickly took a shocking turn….
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A White Supremacist Murderer Devastated Chicago 20 Years Ago. Why Didn’t Anything Change?
Just before sunset on July 2, 1999, a Ford Crown Vic approached 15-year-old Ephraim Wolfe in Chicago’s West Rogers Park. A bullet had just torn a dime-sized hole in Wolfe’s leg, a couple of inches below the knee. The friend with whom he’d been walking had run to a nearby house for help, and Wolfe…
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