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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The towering Jewish critic who taught me to grok art and hate Picasso
After Max Kozloff died at 91, a New York community came together to remember and to mourn
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Mourning Mary Oliver, America’s Spiritual Conscience
Is it possible to be born in a place that sounds more poetic than Maple Heights? That was where Mary Oliver came from: Maple Heights, Ohio. Not everyone from that town was destined to live out the lyric simplicity promised by their birthplace’s name, but Oliver was, and she did. The Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, who…
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A Very Yiddish Way To Respond To Brexit
When it comes to describing baffling human behavior, Yiddish excels, and perhaps the same is true for describing baffling government behavior. As Brexit descends into no-one-knows-what’s-happening mode, and as March 29th — or Brexit day — gets perilously closer, Twitter is lighting up with Yiddish explanations for British politics. “The Yiddish word for “Brexit” is…
The Latest
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Where Did The Myth Of ‘Jewish Success’ Come From Anyway?
Jewish Materialism: The Intellectual Revolution of the 1870s By Eliyahu Stern Yale University Press, 320 pages, $45 Why are Jews so successful? The question is embarrassing, because it is usually asked either by anti-Semites or by right-wing Jewish chauvinists. Fine. All the more so, it deserves an answer. After a millennium on the margins of…
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When Even A Boy Einstein Doesn’t Have ‘All The Answers’
ALL THE ANSWERS Michael Kupperman Simon and Schuster, 224 pages, $25 Michael Kupperman grew up in Connecticut, hidden away in suburbia along with a family secret; Kupperman’s professor father, Joel Kupperman, had been a child star, one of the most popular and recognized child stars of his generation. As the “genius” boy Einstein of the…
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With ‘Ghostbusters 3’ Jason Reitman Is Picking Up Where His Dad Left Off
No one has ever inherited a cooler car than Jason Reitman. Yesterday, the Academy Award-nominated filmmaker announced on Instagram that he would be taking the wheel of the “Ghostbusters” franchise from his father, Ivan, who directed the first two films. The reveal came in the form of an image of Reitman, fils standing near the…
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8 Questions For Author Sam Lipsyte
No one hits a satirical bullseye like Sam Lipsyte. In “Home Land,” a Portnoy-esque series of monologues, published in 2005, the novelist sniped at the convention of the dreaded alumni newsletter; in the 2010 novel “The Ask,” Lipsyte took aim at the donor system in American higher learning. His targets have only gotten bigger: His…
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Theater I Remember ‘Aunt Carol’ Channing
“This temple is going to the dogs,” said the congregant making her way to a seat, to no one in particular but loudly enough for half the sanctuary to hear. “The nerve of them! Bringing in a Carol Channing impersonator — and for the High Holidays!” What had irked her was the announcement just made…
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The Essential Jewishness Of Carol Channing — And Lorelei Lee
The Broadway star Carol Channing, who died on January 15 at age 97, reminded us that caricatures of genius can express humanity and vitality, encapsulating people. Channing was the daughter of Adelaide Glaser (1886–1984), of German Jewish origin. The artist Al Hirschfeld claimed that Channing, along with Zero Mostel, was one of his favorite subjects….
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Alice Walker Still Doesn’t Get It
When it comes to anti-Semitism, Alice Walker still doesn’t get it. Or to be more precise, she still wasn’t getting it when she wrote her most recent blog post, which contains a poem titled “Conscious Earthlings.” The post begins with an email that Walker writes was sent to her by Nurit Peled-Elhanan, an Israeli scholar…
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Librarians And Researchers Are Finally Making Strides Returning Nazi-Looted Books
If you wander the stately stacks of a European library, you may very well encounter books that were looted by the Nazis in World War II. During the 1930s and 40s, Alfred Rosenberg, the leader of the Nazi’s Office of Foreign Policy led the eponymous Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg task force in pillaging over 6,000 archives…
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Art A 92-Year-Old Holocaust Survivor Was Haunted By Hitler. So He Started Dressing Up As Him.
There is no one way to grieve or process a tragedy of an unimaginable scale. Still, few displays of grief are as curious as that favored by the 92-year-old Israeli artist Dov Or-Ner, a Holocaust survivor who appears in public dressed as Adolf Hitler. Or-Ner, a veteran sculptor and painter whose parents died in the…
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