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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Books In the Italian city where James Joyce wrote ‘Ulysses’ a Jewish poet’s bookstore rises back to life
In 1919, Umberto Saba opened an antiquarian bookstore; a century later, the people of Trieste saved it
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Film & TV 30 Years Ago, A Fatwa Against Salman Rushdie Shook The World — And Inspired Larry David
In 2007, on the occasion of his first day teaching literature at Emory University, Salman Rushdie told reporters he receives a “sort of Valentine’s Day card” from the Iranian government each year reminding him the country hasn’t forgotten the bounty it placed on his head in 1989. Today marks the 30th anniversary of Iranian cleric…
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The USSR Turned Against The Jews. But First, It Was A Yiddish Intellectual Haven.
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. It’s not every day that a manuscript gets discovered in an attic, let alone a complete book written by a distinguished Yiddish author. Well, in the world of Yiddish, where even published books are often relegated to synagogue basements, occasions like these are not entirely unusual. Nonetheless,…
The Latest
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How A Yiddish Song Yearning For Moldova Became An Anthem For Jewish Immigrants Everywhere
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. With immigration from Europe largely cut off in 1924 and visits to the old country prohibitively expensive for most, a wave of nostalgia for Eastern Europe spread among Yiddish-speaking Jews in the United States in the 1920s and 1930s. One result of this longing was the creation…
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The Secret Jewish History Of ‘Russian Doll’
Netflix’s “Russian Doll” is a Rorschach of a show. The early press has been hot with takes crowing that the dark and funny series is inseparable from star and co-creator Natasha Lyonne’s history of addiction and AA’s signature 12 steps. Others have posited that the constant respawning of the game-programmer protagonist in the same location,…
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April 2: Massachusetts: Forward Updates With CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
Join Forward CEO and Publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen in West Springfield, Massachusetts, as she is interviewed by writer and fundraising adviser Lou Cove about the changes at the Forward. At the closed event at PJ Library, Rachel will speak to a group of Jewish Federation and JCC leadership from across the United States and Canada….
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Inside The Mind Of Arnold Schoenberg, The Genius Who Defined 20th Century Music
What happens in the mind of a genius? Mozart’s mind was puerile; if his extraordinary sophistication with music extended to other aspects of his psyche, he didn’t show it. Van Gogh was subject to psychotic episodes, a struggle that may have impacted his work, although we can only speculate. Bits of Einstein’s brain are preserved…
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Theater The Folksbiene Has A Hit With ‘Yiddler,’ Here’s How It’s Bringing Back The Hits We’ve Forgotten
Yiddish musicals never had much of a chance to become part of the Great American Songbook. Like so many Jewish cultural developments, the medium was a victim of assimilation in the United States and tragedy in Europe. The works of the Gershwins and of Rodgers and Hammerstein supplanted Yiddish songs as English became the vernacular…
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March 29-April 4: Israel: Yiddish Forverts Takes On The Holy Land
Yiddish Forward editor Rukhl Schaechter is sprinkling in a few speaking engagements during her upcoming 10-day trip to Israel. She will begin Friday, March 29 by teaching a cooking class in Yiddish at The Cooking Studio in Tel Aviv. She’ll repeat the lesson in Jerusalem on April 4 (the location will be determined soon). The…
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Jill Abramson Takes On ‘The Powers That Be’
MERCHANTS OF TRUTH: THE BUSINESS OF NEWS AND THE FIGHT FOR FACTS By Jill Abramson Simon & Schuster, 534 pages, $30 Jill Abramson brings a uniquely informed perspective to the question still obsessing the media world: What’s required for a news organization to survive in the face of a broken business model and the disruptive…
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March 24: Baltimore: Meet Trailblazing Judge Ruchie Freier
Join Forward Life editor Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt in conversation with Judge Ruchie Freier, the world’s first ever female Hasidic judge, on March 24 in Baltimore, Maryland. Freier, who is also founder of the first all-female Orthodox EMT group, will share her trailblazing journey at 7 p.m. at the Ner Tamid Greenspring Valley Synagogue. Register here. To…
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March 19: San Francisco: National Convening On Jewish Poverty
Poverty is a significant but rarely discussed issue within the Jewish community. The National Convening on Jewish Poverty aims to open those channels and, through education, work to find a solution. Forward writer-at-large Jane Eisner will lead a seminar at the conference, based in San Francisco on March 19, focused on Jewish poverty in the…
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Fast Forward It was a historic Jewish night at the Oscars. Why are so many Jews outraged?
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Opinion Trump’s treasury secretary is about to make a catastrophically bad move on Israel
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Fast Forward Trump’s hostage envoy defends talks with Hamas: Meeting with ‘bad people is part of my job’
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Music In 1964, when he was just 23, Bob Dylan wrote the prophetic anthem that encapsulates Trump’s America
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Yiddish World Who was the audience for the rhyming Purim play?
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Fast Forward Adidas just sold off its final Yeezy shoe. Some of the proceeds are going to fight antisemitism.
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