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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Varian Fry Saved Europe’s Artists From The Nazis. His Story Is Stranger Than Fiction.
The Flight Portfolio By Julie Orringer Knopf, 576 pages, $28.95 If you frequent progressive circles, you have likely encountered some form of this refrain: “If you ever wondered what you would have done during the Holocaust, now is the time to find out.” The answer, as it often happens, is wait. You wait for those…
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Activists In Rome Are Countering Hate Symbols With Art
On the streets of Rome, two factions are engaged in a war of words and images. On one side is a group that appears to have far-right sympathies, scrawling swastikas and Celtic crosses on crosswalks, in alleys and on walls. On the other side: a group countering these symbols with poetry. It started on the…
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Film & TV Spielberg Joins Katzenberg For A Spooky Series You Can Only See At Night
Is Quibi the next big thing?
The Latest
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Theater Hades Has A Field Day As ‘Hadestown’ And ‘The Ferryman’ Take The Tonys
The Greek realm of the dead had a banner year at the 2019 Tony Awards. If eight wins for Anaïs Mitchell’s “Hadestown,” a folk retelling of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth wasn’t enough, Jez Butterworth’s “The Ferryman,” which alludes to Charon, the famed boatman who carried the dead through the River Styx in its title,…
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A Coordinated Response to Jewish Poverty in Greater Boston
This essay is part of an ongoing series about Jewish poverty. Previous entries in the series can be found here, here, here and here. In 2008, the national economy went into a freefall, and some still haven’t recovered. Having served as executive director of a small Boston-based Jewish organization that provides emergency assistance, I’ve seen…
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The Secret Jewish History Of Cricket
With the Cricket World Cup underway, what better time to reflect on the complex relationship between Jews and cricket, that most “English of English games,” which, above all, epitomizes the English gentleman. This is not to say that Jews have not enthusiastically played and followed cricket. The Australian batsman Julien Wiener was the son of…
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The Problem With Measuring Jewish Poverty
This essay is part of an ongoing series about Jewish poverty. Previous entries in the series can be found here, here and here. Jewish communal organizations have long been concerned about poverty among American Jews. Many of them trace their origins to helping impoverished Jewish immigrants. Today, federations, agencies and foundations continue to address both…
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Film & TV Stan Lee’s Daughter Sues Memorabilia Manager In New Elder Abuse Lawsuit
A new lawsuit adds to an upsetting picture of longtime Marvel Comics editor Stan Lee’s final days, alleging that those close to Lee sought to profit off him by stealing from his home and working him to the point of exhaustion. The lawsuit, brought by Lee’s daughter, Joan Celia Lee, was filed in Los Angeles…
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At 95, the heroes of the Ghost Army relive the battles of WWII
This top-secret unit used inflatable tanks, planes and phony encampments to dupe the German army
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This Food Pantry Uses Technology And Kindness To Help Feed Hungry Jews (And Others)
This essay is part of an ongoing series about Jewish poverty. Previous entries in the series can be found here and here. It was a bright Thursday morning in late May, and suddenly there was a blueberry crisis. A few staff members of the digital food pantry at the Commonpoint Queens location in Forest Hills…
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Film & TV The Trailer For Woody Allen’s New Film Has Us Concerned
One of the ironies of “A Rainy Day in New York,” Woody Allen’s recently-shelved film, is it may prove quite difficult to see in New York — or, really anywhere in the United States. While it’s still scheduled to make its way to parts of Europe, Amazon pulled the plug on the picture’s release last…
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Sports NBA coach Steve Kerr: ‘Israel sought revenge for Oct. 7 and now 72,000 Palestinians have been killed’
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Culture They escaped the Nazi genocide, but these ‘Wanderers’ still went through hell
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Theater They told Willy Loman he was everything; ’twas a great American lie