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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That time Yiddishists met extraterrestrials a short while ago in a galaxy not far away
It was a normal summer internship at the Yiddish Book Center ... until the Jedi invaded our turf
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Film & TV A Theater Gave Far-Right Germans Free Tickets To ‘Schindler’s List’ — And It Backfired
Last month, members of Alternative for Germany (AfD), Germany’s major far-right party and the largest opposition group in the country’s legislature, were offered a curious Christmas gift: Free tickets to “Schindler’s List.” They weren’t thrilled. As The New York Times reports, Cinexx, an independent theater in Hachenburg, declared it would give free admission for a…
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Film & TV All The Jewish And Jew-Ish Things That Are Public Domain In 2019
Sonny Bono was one half of the folk duo Sonny & Cher, a Republican Congressman from California and the wearer of a notable mustache. He’s less well-known for his connection to copyright law. In 1998, the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, sponsored and named by his widow, Congresswoman Mary Bono, who took her late…
The Latest
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Film & TV Actor Bob Einstein, Known For Super Dave And ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm,’ Dies At 76
Bob Einstein, a staple of sketch, scripted and improvised comedy for five decades died on January 2, 2019, at the age of 76. The New York Times reports that Einstein’s manager, Lee Kernis, confirmed that the comedian had been battling cancer. Einstein, the son of comedian Harry Einstein and actress and singer Thelma Leeds, was…
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In An Era Of Faux News, Let’s Set The Record Straight On Vichy France
The State Versus The Jews By Laurent Joly Grasset, 368 pages, 20,90 € In 1994, the French historians Henry Rousso and Éric Conan published “Vichy, un Passé Qui ne Passe pas.” While titled “Vichy: The Ever-Present Past” in the excellent American translation, the phrase nevertheless has a slightly different resonance in the original French. The…
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Mussolini’s Willing Executioners: The Genocide Of Italy’s Jews
The Italian Executioners: The Genocide of the Jews in Italy By Simon Levis Sullam Princeton University Press, 208 pages, $26.95 In the cultural geography of the Shoah, Italy doesn’t take up much space. Our imagination turns instead to Germany and Poland. This is for good reason, of course, as the Shoah was a German initiative…
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On J.D. Salinger’s 100th Birthday, His Not-So-Secret Jewish History
Celebrations of the American Jewish author J.D. Salinger’s 100th birthday on January 1 continue apace. A J. D. Salinger Boxed Set Centennial Edition has appeared and forthcoming are a new study by Sarah Graham and a paperback reissue of Thomas Beller’s anecdotal biography. The writer, who died in New Hampshire in 2010, will also be…
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How Judaism Can Survive Amid A Gazillion Contradictions
The New American Judaism: How Jews Practice Their Religion Today By Jack Wertheimer Princeton University Press, 400 pages, $29.95 In “The New American Judaism,” Jack Wertheimer, a professor of American Jewish history at the Jewish Theological Seminary and the author of “A People Divided: Judaism in Contemporary America,” draws on interviews with 200 rabbis, survey…
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A Carnival Ride Reimagining Of The Book Of Jeremiah
Muck: A Novel Dror Burstein Translated from the Hebrew by Gabriel Levin Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 400 pages, $27 Prophets don’t really see the future. What they see all too clearly is the present. That’s why prophecy is a lonely, thankless job. Think about the fate of the biblical Jeremiah. For about 40 years, he…
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Amos Oz and Jerusalem: A Complicated Relationship
For Amos Oz, the publication of his memoir “A Tale of Love and Darkness” was an electric moment. “As if I was digging in my own backyard, and I must have touched an underground cable; suddenly the lights in all of the windows began to flash,” he told me in 2011. The book, he said,…
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Amos Oz, Remembered By Those Who Knew Him
Amos Oz was enormously influential, a literary giant whose work helped shape his fledgling country, Israel. But, Jessica Cohen says, he was also kind. “Even though he was famous, an internationally renowned author and intellectual, when you sat and talked with him in his living room it was just like talking with a nice guy,”…
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In 1974, Amos Oz Wasn’t World-Famous — But He Was Already A Political Rebel
Editor’s note: Amos Oz died on December 28, 2018. To commemorate his life, we revisited this glimpse of Oz before he became a figure of international renown, originally published by the Forverts on December 4, 1974. Last week at the 92nd St. Y in Manhattan a young and famous writer from Israel — Amos Oz…
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Fast Forward Rep. Max Miller says driver called him a ‘dirty Jew’ and threatened to kill his family. A local doctor turned himself in.
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Culture Why is Israel’s attack on Iran called ‘Rising Lion’ — and what does the Bible have to do with it?
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Opinion Israeli leaders are using Holocaust comparisons to justify attacks on Iran. Is that kosher?
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