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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In Bipartisan Effort, Senators May Introduce Bill To Keep Iraqi Jewish Archive In U.S.
The Forward recently published an investigative series on the Iraqi Jewish Archive, a trove of items from Iraq’s exiled Jewish Community currently in the United States. Read all three parts: “The Last Relics Of Iraq’s Jewish Past Are In America. Should They Be Returned?.” “In Exile, Iraqi Jews Are Desperate To Reclaim Their Artifacts —…
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How Claude Lanzmann Created Post-War European Jewish Identity
A few years ago at a conference in Paris, I was present at a lecture in French, a language that I understand well enough, but which I speak only with great difficulty. The lecture dealt with the Egyptian-Jewish poet and Holocaust survivor Edmond Jabès. Afterwards I wanted to ask a question, so I began speaking…
The Latest
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Music Meet Seymour Steinbigle Who Discovered Madonna and The Ramones
Calling Seymour Stein one of the most influential figures in American pop music barely does justice to a 60-year career whose highlights include discovering Madonna, the Ramones, the Smiths, and Talking Heads. Now, in his autobiography “Siren Song’” Stein tells all — and we mean all — about his unbelievable life, with seemingly every instance…
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The Photograph That Gave Weegee His First Big Break
In the summer of 1936, Arthur Fellig, the newspaper photographer who would soon be known as Weegee the Famous, was already calling himself Weegee. But he was pretty far from being famous. He had quit a steady job as a darkroom printer about eighteen months earlier and started trying to make a living as a…
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All-Yiddish ‘Fiddler’ Captures How Jews Really Spoke To Each Other
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. As soon as the film version of “Fiddler on the Roof,” based on the stories of the classic Yiddish writer, Sholem Aleichem, came out in movie theaters in 1971, my family and I went to see it. I thought it was wonderful, especially the songs. I learned…
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A Transgressive, Brilliant Leftist Satirist’s Work Finds New Life In English
The works of Yiddish writer and satirist Moyshe Nadir in English translation are gaining a wider audience these days. The newest addition to this growing collection is Nadir’s acerbic comic play “Messiah in America,” translated by Michael Shapiro and published by Farlag. The Yiddish word farlag actually means publishing house. Both the selection of the…
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Why TREASON Is More Popular Than Ever
Something unexpected happened to treason over the past two hundred years — the word nearly disappeared from use. As this handy chart reveals, treason was a much larger part of vocabulary in 1810 than it was in 2010. And maybe because the word left conversation, it also left our consciousness. We forgot about it. Until…
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Leonard Lopate Returns To Radio Amid Controversy
Radio host Leonard Lopate has found a new home—but not all of his neighbors are happy to have him. Lopate, who was suspended and later terminated by WNYC last December after allegations of “inappropriate conduct,” launched his maiden show on the Brooklyn-based station, WBAI on July 16th, 2018 the Columbia Journalism Review reports. The show,…
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Theater America’s First All-Yiddish ‘Fiddler’ Is A Perfect, Bittersweet Portrait Of Jewish Joy
I was sick for my latest birthday, sniffly and feverish, yet I somehow found the wherewithal to force my gathered friends to watch the scene from “Fiddler on the Roof” in which the furious ghost of Frume Sarah rises from the grave. You know the one. Tevye, trying to convince his wife Golde to approve…
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Meet The Greatest (And Only) Jewish Sumo Wrestler
In 1987, Marcello Saloman Imach, a 22-year-old swimming instructor stepped into a gym in Buenos Aires, stamped his feet and did something his Jewish mother could never have imagined. He started sumo wrestling. Sumo is Japan’s national sport, wherein two, overweight and underclad fighters (rikishi) try to force each other out of a ring or…
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EXCLUSIVE: The Iraqi Jewish Archive Could Reshape Foreign Policy. But Its Future Is Uncertain.
This is the final installment in a series on the Iraqi Jewish Archive, a trove of items from Iraq’s exiled Jewish community currently in the United States. Previously, we examined the recent history of Iraqi Jews, the archive’s restoration and the complex argument over its ownership. Catch up with part one, “The Last Relics Of…
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