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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Robert Alter And The Art Of Biblical Disappointment
The Art of Bible Translation By Robert Alter Princeton University Press, 152 pages, $24.95 Students disappoint their teachers constantly, but we enjoy doing so only rarely. Only once have I pleasurably frustrated Robert Alter’s hopes. I was sitting in his office, where I had come to discuss my paper for a graduate seminar on Exodus….
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Folksbiene Plans Ambitious Season To Follow Yiddish ‘Fiddler’
The National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene has a tough act to follow for its 105th season. Last year, the Folksbiene launched a remarkably successful Yiddish production of “Fiddler on the Roof” that, following a sold-out run at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, transferred Off-Broadway, where it is currently playing at Stage 42. In its 2019-2020 season,…
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Michael David Lukas Wins 2019 Sami Rohr Prize For Jewish Literature
On April 30 the Jewish Book Council named Michael David Lukas the winner of the 2019 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, the largest prize in the world of Jewish letters. Lukas is the author of the novel “The Last Watchman of Old Cairo” and a 2018 National Jewish Book Award winner. The book tells…
The Latest
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The Secret Jewish History Of “Rock Around The Clock”
It wasn’t the first rock-and-roll song. It wasn’t even the first rock-and-roll hit. But 65 years ago this May, Bill Haley and His Comets’ version of “Rock Around the Clock” was released, beginning its long, strange journey to the top of the pop charts, where it became the first rock-and-roll tune to hit the No….
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Kurt Weill Opera Suppressed By The Nazis To Make A One-Night Return
A little-known — and very Jewish — opera by Kurt Weill is scheduled to debut in a fresh translation prompted by new insight into why the work remained obscure. Weill, a composer known for his collaborations with the playwright Bertolt Brecht, wrote the comic opera “The Tsar Wants His Photograph Taken” with librettist Georg Kaiser…
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Theater ‘Hadestown,’ ‘Tootsie’ and ‘The Ferryman’ Lead The 2019 Tony Awards Nominees
A folk ballad riff on Greek myth, a family divided by the IRA, a “mad as hell” newscaster and two men who dress in drag for two very different reasons. The most diverse Broadway season in recent memory has made for an eclectic ballot of 2019 Tony nominees. The Tony Award’s announced its nominees April…
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Q & A: Aaron Sorkin On What White Liberal Guys Want
What to do about Aaron Sorkin? The writer and director was once a voice of liberal America. We swooned over the grand ideals and political savvy of President Bartlett and his coterie of advisors on “The West Wing.” A 2012 clip from “The Newsroom” in which Jeff Daniels, as news anchor Will McAvoy, tears down…
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They Were German. They Defied Hitler. But What Did They Accomplish?
Defying Hitler: The Germans Who Resisted Nazi Rule By Gordon Thomas and Greg Lewis Dutton, 542 pages, $30 The most famous episode of German resistance to the Nazis is Operation Valkyrie, the unsuccessful July 20, 1944 plot to kill Hitler and install a constitutional government to negotiate the end of the war. That joint civilian-military…
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At White House Correspondents’ Dinner Ron Chernow Proved Historians Can Be Funny Too
Historian Ron Chernow took the podium on Saturday, April 27, to deliver the keynote of the 2019 White House Correspondents’ Dinner, a post traditionally occupied by a professional comedian. The Alexander Hamilton biographer didn’t strike as contentious a tone as his predecessor, Michelle Wolf, but he did deliver some political zingers throughout his remarks on…
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When Kurt Cobain Spoke Yiddish
Kurt Cobain — guitarist and frontman for the grunge-rock band Nirvana, one of the most influential rock groups of all time — took his own life at age 27, 25 years ago this month. Cobain, who had an abusive childhood, suffered from chronic stomach pain, lifelong depression, drug addiction and a family legacy of suicide….
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Why Is This Passover Different From All Others? In Iceland, It’s Because The Rabbi Lives There.
On the face of it, this year’s Passover in Reykjavik, Iceland resembled last year’s celebration. Both were held in a downtown hotel meeting room set with a dozen long tables. And both had relatively casual atmospheres, featuring bottled water, plastic silverware and bronze and white paper seder plates. But the two holidays couldn’t have been…
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