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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This Man Destroyed The Myth Of Biblical Time
During the documentary “Bill Nye: Science Guy,” America’s favorite science communicator traveled to rural Grant County, Kentucky, to visit Ark Encounter, a Christian evangelical theme park. Its main attraction is a massive, 510-foot-long, wooden “reconstruction” of Noah’s Ark, which towers over the site’s parking lot. Inside the ark, tourists can take their picture with some…
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A Holocaust Museum Tells The Untellable Story — Through Orthodox Eyes
NEW YORK (JTA) — Like Holocaust museums the world over, the Amud Aish Memorial Museum in Brooklyn focuses on European Jewish communities that thrived before the Nazis came to power, the killing machine that led to millions of deaths, and the resilience of survivors both during the war and in rebuilding their Jewish lives in…
The Latest
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How Fight Over African Immigrants Is (Literally) Dividing Houses In Israel
The refugee crisis in Israel is personal for many Israelis. In South Tel Aviv’s Shapira neighborhood, where most residents have modest incomes, one house has two signs — half the house calls for letting refugees stay; the other calls for sending them out of Israel. One sign reads: “South Tel Aviv Is Against the Expulsion.”…
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Film & TV A Film About The Blight Of Anti-Semitism Dominated Austria’s Box Office — In 1924
In the end, the Jews come back. They’re warmly dressed, smiling, clean and apparently none the worse for wear. It’s a convivial scene, a meeting between men who misunderstood each other but never meant harm. Two young girls in light-colored dresses present flowers, in recognition and appreciation: We’re so glad you’re here. The end of…
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Film & TV What Movies Do You Need To Watch To Understand America?
What movies make essential viewing for someone seeking to understand the United States? Ask Martin Scorsese, and he might say — as he did, per a Film Journal International report, at a recent panel discussion in New York — that movies that meet the criteria “look squarely at the struggles, violent disagreements and the tragedies…
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Sadly, The Ku Klux Klan Was A Lot More Mainstream Than You Think
Ku Klux Kulture: America and the Klan in the 1920s By Felix Harcourt University of Chicago Press, 272 Pages, $45 The “alt-right” is alarming, partly because it is youthful. American conservatism often presents itself stodgily: middle-aged men wearing bow ties or affecting English accents; clean-shaven pastors (also men) delivering clean, safe sermons; stiff, suited military…
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Did Simon & Garfunkel Write The Jewish ‘Sgt. Pepper?’
In the late spring of 1967, the release of the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” hit the world like a paisley paint bomb. Its psychedelic splatters were especially evident in England, where pop artists of all stripes immediately seized upon the album’s heady mixture of lysergic wonder and Victorian nostalgia as a new…
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We Were More Than Just Slaves In Egypt
Somewhere between the charoset and the matzo ball soup, the Passover Hagaddah makes a somewhat strange request: “In each generation, every person is obligated to see themselves as if they personally came forth from Egypt.” It’s not enough to merely remember that our ancestors were slaves in Egypt. We need to connect with that memory…
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Superman May Tell A Jewish Story — But It’s Not The One You’d Expect
Is Superman Jewish? Superman, the superhero who defends Metropolis and masquerades by day as the journalist Clark Kent, was born on Krypton. But he immigrates to Earth, just as many Jewish-Americans left their homes to come to the United States. Superman’s adoptive parents, the Kents, find him in a spaceship far from home — just…
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How Ruth Bader Ginsburg Became RBG
During his eight years in the White House, President Bill Clinton appointed more Jews to high-level administration positions than had any other president. Of special historic significance, Clinton was the first president to appoint two Jews to the Supreme Court, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer. The first court vacancy came within six weeks…
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Film & TV Movie News: The Meta-Nostalgia of “Ready Player One,” Corey Feldman Survives a Stabbing
Do you remember when Ridley Scott directed a film about Exodus, featuring Christian Bale as Moses? I didn’t until about five minutes ago, when “Exodus: Gods and Kings” (2014) came up in a Google search. I am dumbstruck as to why I went to go see it in theaters, but I have a feverish memory…
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News Your complete guide to Trump’s Jewish advisers and pro-Israel cabinet
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News What a Secretary of State Marco Rubio would mean for American Jews and Israel
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Antisemitism Notebook Shadowy GOP firm is behind pressure campaign on Schumer over antisemitism bill
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Yiddish ווידעאָ: דער ליובאַוויטשער רבי מוטיקט פֿרויען צו לערנען תּורהVIDEO: The Lubavitcher Rebbe encourages women to learn Torah
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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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