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 Queen
Had things gone the way they were originally supposed to, the lead role of Freddie Mercury in “Bohemian Rhapsody” – the biopic about the rock group Queen that opens on Friday, November 2 – would have been played by Sacha Baron Cohen instead of Rami Malek. That’s right: Instead of the Los Angeles-born son of…
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At The Met, A Kleptomaniac To Dye For
Competing versions of the same story can draw one’s attention to the moments of divergence, like to a distinguishing mark or tic. In this way, it seems notable that the eponymous protagonist of Nico Muhly’s new opera “Marnie,” adapted from the 1961 Winston Graham novel that also inspired Alfred Hitchcock’s 1964 film of the same…
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Music Bob Dylan’s ‘Blood On The Tracks’ Was Pretty Jewish Behind The Scenes
More like “Tangled Up in Jew.” In an October 31, 2018 piece for the New Yorker music journalist Jeff Slate revealed the early recording history of Bob Dylan’s 1975 album “Blood on the Tracks” and its little known Jewish connections. Slate, who wrote the liner notes for “More Blood, More Tracks,” the latest in Dylan’s…
The Latest
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Will The Pittsburgh Bloodbath Forge A Bond Between American Jews And Muslims?
Within hours of the October 27 mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Muslim-American activists sprang into action. Tarek El-Messidi, founding director of the faith-based nonprofit Celebrate Mercy launched a “Muslims Unite for Pittsburgh Synagogue” campaign on LaunchGood, a Muslim fundraising website, with the goal of providing for the short-term needs of…
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AUDIO: Gary Shteyngart, Are Jews White?
Ten years ago I interviewed Gary Shteyngart for a profile in Zeek. At the time his hair was brown and mine covered my head. In the time since then he has continued to put out books at a steady rate of one every three or four years. His earlier novels (“Absurdistan” and “The Russian Debutante’s…
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How A Forverts Video Reunited Two Old Friends
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. In an apartment somewhere in the metropolis of New York City, the distinguished composer Gershon Kingsley was sitting by his archive when he found sheet music for a composition he had created years ago for the dancer Naomi Leaf Halpern, and he realized that it had been…
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Why Trump’s Callous Call To End Birthright Citizenship Is A Jewish Issue
President Trump’s calls to strip American-born citizens of their citizenship should chill all Americans, but it is especially disturbing to anyone with knowledge of Jewish history. Citizenship is a profoundly Jewish issue. In the Middle Ages, many Jews were simply not citizens of their countries. “In much of Europe during the Middle Ages, Jews were…
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Russian Scientist In Antarctica Attacked Co-Worker For Spoiling Book Endings
By its nature Antarctica, has the lowest crime rate of any continent. Housing only a few thousand souls across approximately 66 research bases, spread far apart, the small population of mostly scientists doesn’t allow for many opportunities for extralegal activities. But this month a Russian scientist has been extradited back to his home country after…
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Of Course We Have To ‘Politicize’ The Pittsburgh Bloodbath. That’s What Jews Do.
This week, you will hear many voices telling you not to “politicize” the shootings in Pittsburgh. “I will not politicize the murder of 11 Jews,” celebrity rabbi Shmuley Boteach wrote, before bizarrely connecting Pittsburgh to the Iran deal. “Have a moment of silence, light a candle,” Shmuel Rosner suggested, and don’t “treat this butchery of…
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Jez Butterworth’s Tale Of Love And Darkness
From generation to generation, family wounds re-open. Stories pass on from elders to rapt youth with the ring of truth, the air of prophecy or the bitter tang of regret. The youth of today grows up into its adult responsibilities toward a homeland — one riven by 70 years of war and occupation — that…
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Henrik Galeen: The Jewish Master Of Silent Horror
We all know the story of Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the legendary rabbi of Prague who, from the mud of the Vltava River, willed his famous Golem into existence. But what of Henrik Galeen, the Austrian Jewish horror maven who first committed the story to the silver screen? In Galeen’s hands, the servile terracotta enforcer…
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