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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Film & TV
The Jewish Spy Who Kept Us Safe At Home
A veteran filmmaker looks at baseball catcher-turned-spy Moe Berg
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Film Forum’s Yiddish Film Series Speaks To The Jewish Soul
New York’s Film Forum set itself a real challenge in naming its series on Yiddish Cinema something as definitive as “The Jewish Soul.” Who could agree on what that soul looks like — and how could any lineup do justice to its ancient nature? While not comprehensive, the six films, presented by Kino Lorber from…
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How I Learned To Speak Yiddish And Love The Forverts
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. It is part of a series on Forverts memories written by and about present and past Forverts writers and editors. Just a few months after I began studying Yiddish, I bought my first copy of the Forverts at a newsstand in midtown Manhattan. The headline on the…
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Scenes From The Forverts: When Hasidic Proofreaders And Secular Editors Went Head-To-Head
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. It is part of a series on Forverts memories written by and about present and past Forverts writers and editors. By the time I began working at the Forverts as an associate editor under Boris Sandler, I had missed out on the paper’s venerable traditions of Yiddish…
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Kafka Confidant Max Brod’s Stolen Archive Is Headed To Israel
In April, a court in Zurich ordered a huge cache of Franz Kafka’s manuscripts transferred from Switzerland to the National Library of Israel. Now, the personal papers of Kafka’s confidant, Max Brod, who safeguarded those powerful texts, are headed there too. In a May 21 ceremony at the Israeli ambassador to Germany’s residence in Berlin,…
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Isaac Bashevis Singer’s Love Affair With The Forward
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. It is part of a series on Forverts memories written by and about present and past Forverts writers and editors. “I can say I have achieved one thing in my life,” said Isaac Bashevis Singer. “My chaos has reached perfection!” This is what Bashevis Singer declared whenever…
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Roman Polanski Made A Film About The Dreyfus Affair. Will Anyone Distribute It?
Since 1978, director and convicted sex offender Roman Polanski has lived as a fugitive in Europe, where he has continued to make movies. But it seems that post #MeToo, securing distribution for Polanski’s films requires a degree of extreme discretion, even on the continent he calls home. On May 18, the first Saturday of the…
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I Edited The Forverts For 18 Years, But I Never Forgot My First Day
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. It is part of a series on Forverts memories written by and about present and past Forverts writers and editors. It’s often said that one’s first impressions are usually the strongest, although not necessarily the most precise. Although I experienced a number of memorable moments during my…
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Art National Museum Of American Jewish History CEO Resigns
Ivy L. Barsky, the chief executive of the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia, has resigned. She will leave the institution in June, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported. Barsky was named CEO in 2012, two years after the museum opened a new $150 million building. (The museum, founded in 1976, was historically housed in…
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Film & TV ‘Game Of Thrones’ Made Headlines For A Starbucks Cup. Were The Showrunners To Blame?
With “Game of Thrones” arriving at an unsatisfying end, fans have been quick to pin the blame on showrunners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff. If the timing of the hit show’s eighth season felt rushed, the character beats unconvincing or the conclusion a bit confused, it makes sense that the pair, who wrote the final…
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How Four Women Told The World About The Nazis’ Medical Experiments
In January of 1943, four Polish political prisoners in Ravensbrück, a women-only Nazi concentration camp in northern Germany, wrote letters to their families. Inmates were allowed to write one letter per month, missives that the SS strictly censored. The four women escaped suspicion by banally describing life in the camps as pleasant. But in truth,…
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