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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Susan Choi, László Krasznahorkai Take Home National Book Awards
On November 20, the National Book Foundation feted six diverse winners for its 70th annual National Book Awards. Novelist Susan Choi, the daughter of a Korean father and a Russian-Jewish mother won the fiction prize for her fifth book, “Trust Exercise,” a narratively-inventive, #MeToo-informed story about a performing arts high school in the 1980s. The…
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Lin-Manuel Miranda Almost Did ‘My Name Is Asher Lev’ Instead Of ‘Hamilton’
Lin-Manuel Miranda is a household name. He made Alexander Hamilton one, too. Might he have done the same for a young ultra-Orthodox painter named Asher Lev? During a November 19 Reddit Ask Me Anything, Miranda said that he once owned the theatrical rights to Chaim Potok’s novel “My Name is Asher Lev” (1972), which follows…
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Vampire Weekend, Babs And RBG’s Son Pick Up 2020 Grammy Nominations
As with all things Jewish, there are ups, and there are downs. At first glance 2020’s Grammy nominees, announced November 20, find our people performing admirably, but not necessarily with the degree of success to which we’ve become accustomed. Drake, for example, only has two nominations, down from last year’s seven. But the Grammys distributes…
The Latest
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What’s Jewish About The 10 Democratic Debaters: A Visual Guide
From the earliest stirrings of our republic, American presidents have been connected to the Jewish people. General Washington relied on financier Haym Salomon for ready cash for the Continental Army, and as our population climbed, Jews have served as Supreme Court justices, cabinet secretaries, speechwriters, senators and security experts called on to testify in impeachment…
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In Impeachment Hearings, The Dignity Of Details
On Friday, instead of cleaning for Shabbat, I found myself riveted and completely spellbound by the testimony of Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch. But something else struck me — the raw power of the question as a form. The idea, old as the Greeks and deeply present in the Talmud, that question followed by question can lead…
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Read Meghan Markle’s Favorite Jewish Books
From Noam Chomsky to Annie Leibovitz, here's what Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, has on her bookshelf.
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Amazon Is Scrupulously Destroying Nazi Props Used In ‘Man In The High Castle’
The Amazon Prime series “The Man in the High Castle” had a rocky start when it came to Nazi imagery. In 2015, the show, set in an alternate universe in which the Axis won World War II and split the United States between Japanese and German control, was the subject of early outrage. The cause…
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Nebuchadneezy? Kanye West To Debut Opera Based On The Jews’ Babylonian Captor
Mere weeks after releasing a gospel album featuring Kenny G, Kanye West is set to bring the world an opera about one of the Jewish people’s greatest tormentors. That’s right, folks: Kanye is going full Verdi and giving us his riff on Nebuchadnezzar II, the Babylonian king who, in the Book of Daniel, went mad…
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10 Ways To Pay For Your Future In Jewish Studies
Maimonides wrote his “Guide to the Perplexed” about ancient philosophy, but one of the most perplexing questions facing young Jewish scholars today is how to get through graduate school without going into debt. For our readers mulling careers in Judaic Studies, we’ve rounded up ten generous sources of funding and fellowships – so you can…
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7 Jewish Texts You Must Read — Profs Choose Their Favorites
Want to stump a professor? Just ask: “What’s the most important text on your syllabus?” The question posed a challenge to some who couldn’t bear to name just one. “It’s a tough one!” Samuel Hayim Brody, assistant professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Kansas, wrote in an email. “I am…
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Q & A: How Should Jewish Studies Address Anti-Semitism?
A year ago, Leah Garrett left Australia, where she had been a professor at Melbourne’s Monash University since 2008, to direct the newly-founded Jewish Studies Center at Hunter College. A year into the job, Garrett, the author of four books — including 2015 National Book Award Finalist “Young Lions: How Jewish Authors Reinvented the American…
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