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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Meet America’s Most Outspoken Film Critic — On Elaine May, Steven Spielberg & Yiddishkeit
At 75, one of America’s most influential film critics, Jonathan Rosenbaum, is being celebrated with a collection of his articles from University of Illinois Press and with a second volume planned for May. His international reputation is based on previous books on political films, the vagaries of film culture, the cinema of Orson Welles, the…
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Is Captain Marvel A Zionist Superhero?
Captain Marvel is the first female lead of a Marvel Cinematic Universe film. Her movie is the first female-fronted film to break $400 million in its opening weekend. Is she also the first Zionist superhero of the MCU? There’s no real way to make this argument without spoiling one of the major reveals of “Captain…
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Ilya Kaminsky: A Poet At The Height Of His Powers, Questioning Everything
Deaf Republic: Poems By Ilya Kaminsky Graywolf Press, $16, 80 pages The poetry world has been waiting for Ilya Kaminsky’s new collection for fifteen years — but this is the book that will bring him wide readership outside of the small yet passionate continent of poetry readers. This is the book that will let readers…
The Latest
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A Collegial Interrogation Of Debut Novelist Andrew Ridker
Andrew Ridker was writing about Jewish novelists before he became one. I know this because we were college classmates, and I read a fair portion of Andrew’s thesis on Philip Roth. Before the close reading of “American Pastoral,” I read some of Andrew’s early poetry — more on that, later — and at least one…
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A Thrilling Israeli Spy Story, But Is It Accurate? Or Moral?
Spies of No Country: Secret Lives at the Birth of Israel By Matti Friedman Algonquin Books, 272 pages, $26.95 It is entertaining to learn that in Beirut in 1947, Jewish intelligence agents detonated a mine attached to the Aviso Grille, which was once Hitler’s personal yacht. In his new history, “Spies of No Country: Secret…
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A Wandering Jew Finds Her Way Back Home
The Art of Leaving By Ayelet Tsabari Random House, 336 pages, $26 As a young woman, Ayelet Tsabari is the prototypical wandering Jew. She abandons her family, in suburban Tel Aviv, for the United States, Canada, India, Thailand and other countries, fleeing grief and loss. But is she losing even more in the process? Bouncing…
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Art Provocative Feminist Artist Carolee Schneemann Dies At 79
Carolee Schneemann, a boundary-shattering visual, film and performance artist has died at the age of 79; her often messy, always provocative mark on the culture survives in figures as diverse as Marina Abramović, Lena Dunham and Lady Gaga. ArtNews reported Schneemann’s passing, confirmed to them by a New York representative and her dealer P.P.O.W. Gallery….
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Art Samantha Bee Reveals A New, Unflattering Sackler Family Exhibit
Samantha Bee slapped the Sackler name on yet another art institution. To draw attention to Purdue Pharma’s alleged role in the opioid crisis, Bee enshrined the family behind the company in “The Sackler Museum of Stupid S—t the Sacklers Bought with Their Blood Money” on Wednesday’s “Full Frontal.” The museum presentation is a nod to…
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In ‘Hidden Years,’ A Story Of Love, Family And The Holocaust
While she was working as a culture fellow at the Forward, Anna Goldenberg published an essay in which she described a visit to the former concentration camp Theresienstadt she took with her grandmother, Helga, and her great-aunt, Liese. Helga and Liese had been deported to Theresienstadt from Vienna, along with their mother, in the spring…
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Q&A: Martin Stellman, Screenwriter Of ‘Babylon’ And ‘Quadrophenia’
The 1980 film “Babylon” is nearly 40 years old, but to American audiences it’s bound to feel fresh. For one thing, the novelty is guaranteed in that the film is only now receiving its theatrical premiere in the United States March 8, but more troublingly the themes of “Babylon,” though filmed a whole ocean away,…
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Before You Check Out Of ‘Captain Marvel,’ Check Out These Jewish Superheroes
A lot of nerdy men are upset about Captain Marvel. These men are so upset, they forced Rotten Tomatoes to revise its ratings policy due to score sabotage for the flick, which premieres March 8. Their gripe? Star Brie Larson wants more inclusive press junkets (and also she’s a woman). This type of regressive hissy…
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