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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That time Yiddishists met extraterrestrials a short while ago in a galaxy not far away
It was a normal summer internship at the Yiddish Book Center ... until the Jedi invaded our turf
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Adult Swim’s ‘Lazor Wulf’ Is A Show About A Laser Wolf, Not The ‘Fiddler’ Butcher, Lazar Wolf
Lazar Wolf is a creation of the great Yiddish fiction writer Sholem Aleichem. He is Anatevka’s village butcher. In “Fiddler on the Roof,” the 1964 musical treatment of Aleichem’s Tevye the Milk Man stories, Wolf is best remembered for being a wealthy older suitor to Tevye’s daughter Tzeitel. He doesn’t end up marrying her (Motel…
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At Henry Street, The Fight For Immigrant Rights Endures
“Scorn of the immigrant is not peculiar to our generation,” the progressive reformer and nurse Lillian Wald wrote in “The House on Henry Street,” the memoir she wrote in 1915. That was 22 years after she had traded in her plan to become a doctor for a life spent helping the polyglot residents of the…
The Latest
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Two Forward Writers Nominated For 2019 Deadline Club Awards
Two writers from the Forward are finalists for awards from the Deadline Club, the New York City chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, the Club announced Monday. Deputy Culture Editor Talya Zax was one of three journalists nominated in the category of Arts Reporting for her December 2018 cover story, “Men Explain Anne Frank…
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Virginia School District Apologizes For Student’s ‘Jewish People’ Drawing
The superintendent of Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia has publicly apologized for a student drawing that many deemed anti-Semitic. The picture, displayed at Northern Virginia Community College’s Annandale campus between February 14 and March 14, was one of eight drawings made by a 17-year-old high school student as part of a series titled “Racial…
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Can ‘Tootsie’ Turn Men Into Mensches In The #MeToo Era?
After winning Tony and Grammy awards for his score for “The Band’s Visit,” composer-lyricist David Yazbek is poised for another Broadway hit with the musical adaptation of Sydney Pollack’s 1982 film classic, “Tootsie.” With book writer Robert Horn and director Scott Ellis, Yazbek (“The Full Monty,” “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels,” “Women on the Verge of a…
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In a Kraków Basement, Awkward Objects of Genocide
At the entrance to the temporary exhibition in Esterka’s House, a branch of the Ethnographic Museum in Kraków, there is a photograph of the collections storage of the Warsaw State Ethnographic Museum. The photograph shows rows of densely populated shelves: in the space of just a few cubic meters, hundreds of hand-carved figurines are consorting….
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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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How To Capture The Nuances Of Torah — In Braille
Recently, I unexpectedly found myself in an elegant hotel ballroom in Virginia, discussing Yehuda Amichai’s iconic poem “The Diameter of a Bomb” with a deaf and blind poet. As the poet and his interpreters communicated in Pro-Tactile American Sign Language — an emerging language using touch to convey sign language, much in the way that…
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The Best New Haggadot And The Best Of All Time
I’ve been tracking the release of new haggadot for the Forward for eleven years now. I’ve reviewed the good, the bad, the overproduced, the underappreciated. (Some of my all-time favorites are listed at the end.) And over the years, it’s been remarkable to observe how the production of haggadot each year reflects the continued vitality…
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Amazon Blames Woody Allen For 4-Picture Deal Contract Break
Amazon Studios responded to Woody Allen’s $68 million breach of contract lawsuit Wednesday night, claiming his public comments about #MeToo justified the termination of their deal. In February, Allen sued the e-store’s film division, claiming they had improperly broken their agreement based on an allegation by his daughter Dylan Farrow that Allen molested her in…
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Film & TV The Secret Jewish History Of ‘Dumbo’
Tim Burton’s remake for Disney of “Dumbo” about an elephant whose oversized ears enable him to fly, has received mixed reviews. Some filmgoers prefer the classic 1941 version, also from Disney. Yet indisputably, the story for both originated in a book published in 1939 by Helen Aberson (1907-1999), a Syracuse-born writer of Ukrainian Jewish origin….
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Fast Forward Rep. Max Miller says driver called him a ‘dirty Jew’ and threatened to kill his family. A local doctor turned himself in.
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News An Alabama millionaire offered Jews $50,000 to move to his town. 16 years later, what’s left?
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Culture Why is Israel’s attack on Iran called ‘Rising Lion’ — and what does the Bible have to do with it?
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News As Israel attacks, what is life like for Jews in Iran?
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Food In gentrified Manhattan, one Jewish luncheonette strives to keep the faith (except for the bacon part)
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Opinion Think speaking out against Trump won’t help? A 1943 protest in Nazi Germany says you’re wrong.
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Culture How a Jewish reporter like me got addicted to Christian media
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Opinion Israeli leaders are using Holocaust comparisons to justify attacks on Iran. Is that kosher?
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