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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Yes, Prince Charles Jams Out To Leonard Cohen
For all his royal trappings, Prince Charles is still a 70-year-old white man. And like many 70-year-old white men, he loves the music of the late Leonard Cohen. In a new special for BBC Radio 3’s “Private Passions,” where well-known Brits draw up playlists of songs they’ve found to be formative, the Prince of Wales…
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The Navy Is Disciplining Sailors With Ayn Rand (Yes, Really)
The Russian-Jewish novelist Ayn Rand’s books are many things: A surprisingly formative force in modern conservatism, the subject of the hilarious scorn of Nora Ephron, something your high school boyfriend felt, like, really passionate about, alarmingly attractive to Rand Paul and unconscionably long. Now, as the United States Navy seeks more humane forms of discipline,…
The Latest
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News Media Should Democratize Presidential Debates — Not Monetize Them
The CBS board may have fired Les Moonves for misleading them about sex, but he did call it straight about money, media and politics. “Trump’s run may not be good for America,” he told a conference of investment bankers in 2016, “but it’s damn good for CBS.” The campaign may be a “circus,” he said,…
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In Praise Of Ruth Rubin, Patron Saint Of Yiddish Song
Ruth Rubin was the Alan Lomax of Yiddish folk song. For over 40 years, she visited Jewish communities around the world, tape recorder in hand, assembling a collection of more than 2,000 songs, including lullabies, children’s songs, love songs, drinking songs, satirical songs, and work songs, gathered from ordinary (and some extraordinary) “informants.” Hers was…
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After 20 Years, A Bible Translation Gives Old Stories New Life
How can one find fresh nuance in an over 2,ooo-year-old book? If the book is the Hebrew Bible, by returning to the original Hebrew. After over two decades, the 83-year-old literary critic and translator Robert Alter has completed his translation of the Hebrew Bible, an undertaking that has resulted in over 3,000 pages of commentary…
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In ‘On The Basis Of Sex,’ A Reverential Portrait Of RBG
In the opening sequence of Mimi Leder’s feature film “On the Basis of Sex,” set in 1956, swarms of men in black and grey suits march toward what turns out to be Harvard Law School. Suddenly, among those drab masculine multitudes, we spot the back of a single woman in a blue dress: our heroine,…
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Suddenly, Yiddish Theater Is Everywhere!
“Fiddler on the Roof” has made headlines of late as public figures have expressed their love for Yiddish theater. Interestingly, what brings on the love is the Yiddish language itself. Alan Dershowitz is not primarily known as a theater critic, but he was so moved by a recent Yiddish performance of “Fiddler on the Roof”…
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Film & TV The Secret Jewish History Of Rock Hudson
Who was the biggest male star in Hollywood in the 1950s and ‘60s? John Wayne? Too typecast in Westerns. Marlon Brando? Too weird and rebellious. James Dean? Died too young. It may be hard to remember or to imagine today, but the biggest star in Hollywood back then was a clean-cut, all-American, handsome guy named…
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From Pittsburgh To Canary Mission: Our Best Stories Of 2018
Ah, 2018: Year of political turmoil, Manhattan’s swoon of adoration over a particularly handsome duck, a doubtful detente with North Korea, the ascendancy of our queen Meghan Markle, a Supreme Court confirmation process that excavated some of the ugliest facts about sexism in America, and the Winter Olympics. (Yes, those really happened in 2018!) We…
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Disgraced German Reporter Fabricated Details In Nazi Resistance Interview
It was one of Claas Relotius’s most widely praised pieces, an interview with 99-year-old Traute Lafrenz, the last surviving member of the famous Weisse Rose (White Rose) Nazi resistance group. But when an investigation found that Relotius, 33, a star reporter at Der Spiegel, one of Germany’s leading news magazines, had a very lax understanding…
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Susan Orlean On Her Passion For Books And Judaism
On April 29, 1986, a massive fire ripped through the Los Angeles Public Library’s central branch. During the nearly eight hours that the fire raged, temperatures reached 2,500 degrees, 350 firefighters reported to the scene, shelves collapsed,3 million gallons of water were expended, and two acres of plastic sheeting were deployed to try to salvage…
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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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Fast Forward It was a historic Jewish night at the Oscars. Why are so many Jews outraged?
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Fast Forward What does the election of Mark Carney mean for Canadian Jews and Israel?
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Film & TV Mikey Madison is Jewish — is ‘Anora’?
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Fast Forward This mayor helped Trump win Arab American voters in Michigan. His reward: An ambassadorship.
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Opinion At least one world leader understands the existential threat Putin poses to Europe and to Jews
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Fast Forward Voting opens in election for World Zionist Congress, with future of Israel at stake
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Fast Forward ICE arrests Palestinian protest leader at Columbia, in sharp escalation of campus actions
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