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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What Bette Davis Can Teach Donald Trump About Fake News
You are teaching a class on media literacy. You want your students to think critically about the truth claims of messages. You bring to the classroom Donald Trump and Bette Davis. You display a Trump tweet about our trade deficit with China: “The U.S. is losing $500 Billion a year…. Cannot continue!” You ask your…
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Film & TV The Secret Jewish History Of ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’
Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece “2001: A Space Odyssey” was released in April, 1968, which makes it fifty years old this year. It reinvented the science fiction genre but significantly was underpinned with Jewishness. “2001” was backed by MGM, a studio otherwise known as “Mayer’s Gantze Mishpochah.” It was perceived as a very Jewish firm abroad in…
The Latest
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‘GI Jews’ Didn’t Just Fight Nazis— They Battled Anti-Semitism In The Ranks Too
(JTA) — “GI Jews: Jewish Americans in World War II” begins as many Holocaust documentaries do, with a history of the rise of Hitler and Nazism in Germany mixed with what is now standard archival footage of Brownshirts and Kristallnacht. Throw in interviews with some Jewish celebrities — in this case, Carl Reiner and his friend…
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Does This Picture Prove God Exposed Himself to Ancient Jews?
A “portrait” uncovered decades ago from a 3,000 year old archeological site in the Sinai Desert provides evidence that early Jewish worshippers didn’t share the monotheistic beliefs of their descendants, according to Nir Hasson, who wrote a fascinating piece on the subject for Haaretz. What’s more, according to one archaeologist interviewed by Hasson, the findings…
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Paul Goldberg’s Dizzying Plunge Into The Kingdom Of Uselessness
The Château By Paul Goldberg Picador, 384 pages, $26 As the Age of Trump dawns, fictional Washington Post reporter William M. Katzenelenbogen finds himself broke and out of a job. In his prime, the Russian American Katzenelenbogen – heck, let’s join novelist Paul Goldberg in calling him Bill – was an ace science investigative reporter,…
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Maya Angelou’s Message For The Orthodox
People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel. – Maya Angelou (1928 – 2014) To me, this beautiful quote from the late, great Maya Angelou, encapsulates so much of the tension in Orthodox Judaism today. Generally, people in my community are…
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Art How Leon Golub Slashed Out Against Cruelty, Violence And Toxic Masculinity
In his obituary in the August 12, 2004, issue of The New York Times, Leon Golub is described as “an American painter of expressionistic, heroic-scale figures that reflect dire modern political conditions.” His new exhibition at the Met Breuer, “Leon Golub: Raw Nerve” suggests the artist’s vision — violent, cruel, red in tooth and claw,…
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Famous Jewish Dachshund Owners To Feature at “Sausage Dog” Museum in Germany
The American Kennel Club recently named dachshunds the country’s 9th most popular breed. But Americans’ love of the “sausage dog” doesn’t come close to how revered they are in their native Bavaria. Now, two German former florists have opened a museum in Passau, Germany to honor the creature according to the BBC. The museum will…
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Mocking Misogyny On Twitter Is Self-Defeating. Here’s Why.
One morning when I was 15 years old, a junior in high school, I decided to straighten my hair. This was a big deal; I was in a sweatshirt phase, having decided that the speediest way to deal with not having what I thought of as traditional good looks was to ignore my looks altogether….
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Why The Word ‘Maven’ Is Everywhere These Days
“Maven,” meaning “expert, connoisseur, or authority,” is emerging as one of the hottest words of 2018. A hotel, a smartphone, a streetwear line and a private wine club have all adopted “maven” as a moniker this year. And, it was revealed today, there’s Project Maven, the controversial Pentagon program designed to use computer algorithms to…
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The 27 Poems You Have To Read For National Poetry Month
“In a political culture of managed spectacles and passive spectators, poetry appears as a rift, a peculiar lapse, in the prevailing mode,” wrote Adrienne Rich in her 1993 essay “Someone is Writing a Poem.” Later, in the same essay, she tried to explain just how: “In the wash of poetry the old, beaten, worn stones…
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Culture How a son of Holocaust survivors joined a commune and helped to free ‘Hurricane’ Carter
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Fast Forward Why the Weitzman, a museum of American Jewish history, tapped an Israeli as its next CEO
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