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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Theater Jason Alexander lives out a lifelong dream, playing Tevye in ‘Fiddler on the Roof’
'I wanted to do a piece that is proudly Semitic' said the Tony winner and ‘Seinfeld' star
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How Renée Taylor, Of ‘The Nanny’ Fame, Gets It Done
Attitudes towards the overweight in general, and women in particular, have evolved — well, sort of. Just ask actress and writer Renée Taylor (“The Nanny,” “Dream On,” “How I Met Your Mother”). As a keen social observer of the cultural scene, not to mention her own weight issues over the past 85 years, she knows…
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Film & TV Ruchie Freier’s Fight Exemplifies Orthodox Feminism. Is That A Good Thing?
Many people assume that the hardest part of being an Orthodox woman is following the religious code. But it’s not — it’s playing by the social rules. The new documentary “93Queen” follows Judge Ruchie Freier, a Haredi woman, through the founding of the first all-female Orthodox EMT group, Ezras Nashim, and Freier’s campaign for Civil…
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Film & TV The Secret Jewish History of ‘Mission: Impossible’
Last weekend, the sixth installment of the “Mission: Impossible” film franchise, “Mission: Impossible – Fallout,” rocketed to the top of the box office. The movies track the travails of Impossible Missions Force (IMF) master spy Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) as he hangs from helicopters, brawls on narrow walkways and sprints through cobblestone alleys in a…
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Art Gerda Taro Was A Pioneering Woman Photojournalist — Now She’s A Google Doodle
The Jewish-German photojournalist Gerda Taro’s brief life was filled with firsts. She is widely considered to have been the first woman photographer assigned to the frontlines and, unfortunately, the first to die on assignment. Today would have marked her 108th birthday, and Google is celebrating her considerable legacy with a doodle on its homepage. Taro,…
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In Anton Rubinstein’s ‘Demon,’ A Moving Examination Of Exile
The title character of Anton Rubinstein’s opera “Demon,” appearing at Bard SummerScape through August 5, is an anomaly. He’s not really interested in sowing evil. He doesn’t yearn for heaven; he always found it boring. He’s profoundly skeptical of the unquestioning worship of God. He doesn’t care for the idea of divine love, convinced only…
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Palestinian Writer Convicted Over Poems Sentenced To Five Months In Prison
After over two years of house arrest, Palestinian poet and Israeli citizen Dareen Tatour has finally learned what her future holds. On Tuesday, July 31 the Nazareth District Court sentenced Tatour, who in 2015 drew wide support from writers and advocates of free speech, to five months in prison, Haaretz reports. The sentencing follows Tatour’s…
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Art In Cleveland, A Jewish Artist Honors Tamir Rice By Engaging His Community
On November 22, 2014, 12-year-old Tamir Rice, who was black, was shot outside the Cuddel Recreation Center in Cleveland, Ohio by police officer Timothy Loehmann, who is white. Rice would die the following day from gunshot wounds to the torso. At the time of the shooting, Rice was carrying a black Airsoft gun, a toy,…
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Theater ‘Tevye Served Raw’ Captures Sholem Aleichem’s Genius In Two Languages
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Sholem Aleichem has been an unusually frequent topic of conversation in New York this summer, thanks to the critical and commercial success of the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene’s Yiddish-language production of “Fiddler on the Roof.” As anyone who has read Sholem Aleichem’s Tevye stories is well aware,…
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Shin Bet Detains Israeli Author At Airport Over Leftist Ties
The 28-year old Israeli author Moriel Rothman-Zecher, traveling with his wife and infant daughter, was held by the Shin Bet at Ben-Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv this week. Haaretz reports that the agency, also known as the Shabak and charged with safeguarding state security and exposing and interrogating terror suspects, feared Rothman-Zecher’s involvement with…
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She Captured The Soul Of Harvey Weinstein — And Bernie Madoff And Anthony Weiner
Since the 1980s, the Brooklyn-born courtroom artist Jane Rosenberg has won attention for her trial portraits of Bernard Madoff, Woody Allen, Leona Helmsley, Anthony Weiner and others, broadcast over all major TV networks. Most recently, her sketches from the prosecution of Harvey Weinstein in downtown Manhattan for rape and other crimes went viral for their…
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Anton Rubinstein, Composer And Pianist, Wowed The World. How Did We Forget Him?
The first performance of Anton Rubinstein’s opera “The Demon” at London’s Covent Garden was memorable — to say the least. A spurt of flame, a New York Times reporter reminisced in 1893, “burst out from the Demon’s den, and set the adjoining scenery on fire.” Rubinstein was conducting and helped put out the fire, an…
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