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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The Secret Jewish History Of The Happy Meal
In June of 1979, 40 years ago, the world of picky eaters experienced a total game changer. That month, McDonald’s went national with a cardboard clutch containing a choice of hamburger or cheeseburger, a small drink, cookies, a small bag of fries and — of course — a toy. The Happy Meal, like the fast…
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Art The Secret Jewish History Of Popeye The Sailor Man
It’s the 90th anniversary of the creation of Popeye, and the Yiddishkeit of the sailor, created by American Jewish cartoonist Elzie Segar (1894–1938), is more apparent than ever. There’s even a Popeye The Sailor Man Mezuzah sold online to protect Jewish homes from evil. Yet explicit Jewish content was scant in the Illinois-born Segar’s original…
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From ‘The Black Dahlia’ To ‘Tulip Fever,’ Are Flower-Based Films Doomed To Fail?
In 1637, a craze for hybrid tulips brought the Dutch economy to its knees. The flowers were overvalued, creating the first speculative bubble on record. The phenomenon, called “Tulip Mania,” ended in financial ruin for many. Some 380 years later, a film called “Tulip Fever,” set during Tulip Mania and produced by Harvey Weinstein, also…
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The Secret Jewish History Of Walt Whitman
The poet Walt Whitman, whose bicentenary is on May 31, found universal inspiration in all Americans, including Jews. As a young journalist and newspaper editor in March 1842, he wrote in “The New York Aurora” under the headline “The More the Merrier”: “Our Jewish citizens have lately taken quite a fancy to The Aurora. They…
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Netflix ‘Roasted’ Anne Frank. They Could Have Left Hitler’s Genitals Out Of It.
Sure, you can poke fun at Anne Frank. But it may be a mistake to do so by joking about Hitler’s testicles. That’s the approach that comedian Jeff Ross takes in the “Anne Frank” episode of his new Netflix series “Historical Roasts,” in which historical figures take the stage in order to be lampooned by…
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This Holocaust Survivor’s Tapestries Show Her ‘Affirmation Of Life’
Ted Comet is an indefatigable leader and public figure who will serve as a grand marshal of the upcoming Celebrate Israel Parade, but he does one of his most important jobs in the privacy of his own Upper West Side apartment. That’s where he gives tours to school groups, rabbinic students, psychoanalysts and historians of…
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‘Anne Frank: The Musical’ To Premiere Off-Broadway In September
A musical adaptation of the life of Anne Frank will make its U.S. premiere at the Center for Jewish History this September. “Anne Frank, The Musical,” written by composer-playwright Jean-Pierre Hadida, made its debut in Paris in 2008. Hadida is not the first to attempt to tell Frank’s story in a musical; Enid Futterman and…
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Pulitzer-Winning Journalist Tony Horwitz Dies At 60
Tony Horwitz, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist whose work challenged labor practices and the cultural divides between the Northern and Southern United States, died on Monday. He was 60 years old. Horwitz’s wife, the Pulitzer-winning novelist Geraldine Brooks, told The New York Times that Hrowitz collapsed while walking in the Washington D.C. suburb of Chevy Chase,…
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Music In Leonard Cohen’s Letters, A Window Into His Life And Work
Leonard Cohen’s status as a musical and literary icon is a matter of historical record. But what the notoriously stoic poet and songwriter thought of his rise to fame remains more elusive; it was information shared only with a few intimates, Marianne Ihlen foremost among them. Over 50 letters that Cohen sent to Ihlen, his…
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Remembering Judith Kerr, Whose Children’s Books Turned Anguish Into Hope
The beloved children’s book author Judith Kerr, who died on May 22 at age 95, proved that one way of coping with the tragedies of modern Jewish history was with an appetite for creative work. Born Anna Judith Gertrud Helene Kerr to an uncommonly creative German Jewish family, she would write and illustrate such endearing…
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Bob Dylan’s 10 Most Jewish Songs
Bob Dylan turns 78 today. In honor of that auspicious occasion, we revisit his 10 most Jewish songs.” While Bob Dylan has, throughout his life and career, engaged in all sorts of mythologizing and playful biographical falsification, it has never been in the service of denying his heritage. This son of a middle-class appliance salesman…
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