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
-
That time Yiddishists met extraterrestrials a short while ago in a galaxy not far away
It was a normal summer internship at the Yiddish Book Center ... until the Jedi invaded our turf
-
Life, Death And Wrestling With Delacroix’s Angel In Paris
‘You must see the garden,” said the guard, in French, pointing to a door in the Delacroix Museum that my daughter and I hadn’t noticed. It led outside and down two sets of stairs to an exquisite courtyard, a silent oasis below the studio where Eugène Delacroix lived while he struggled to finish his last…
-
Rachel Kushner, Michael Ondaatje Longlisted For Man Booker Prize
Rachel Kushner, Sally Rooney and Richard Powers are among the authors longlisted for the 2018 Man Booker Prize. The prize, given annually, will be awarded on October 16, following the announcement of a shortlist on September 20. Originally restricted to fiction from Commonwealth countries and Ireland, the prize recently attracted controversy after, starting in 2014,…
The Latest
-
Behold The Jewish Treasures Of The Library Of Congress
I saw censor’s marks for the first time at the Library of Congress, home to a priceless collection of Hebrew books. I opened a 1486 edition of the machzor, a High Holidays prayer book labeled Minhag Roma, or Roman rite — printed in Italy, bound in marbled boards and featuring leather corners — and gasped…
-
Film & TV The Old Schtick Still Works For Mel Brooks
At 92, Mel Brooks is a lot of things: A Kennedy Center award recipient, a titan of both stage and screen even a vampire grandfather in the recently-released “Hotel Transylvania 3,” but for all these distinctions he reduces himself to one thing. “I’m just a Jew comic,” he tells David Denby in a new profile…
-
Is It Kosher For A Jew To Love Gospel Music?
Synagogue was never a particularly religious place for me. The songs, prayers and rituals I observed and participated in at my hometown Conservative synagogue just never really did it for me. By “it,” I mean the feeling that I always sensed I was supposed have inside that building with the stained-glass windows, wood-backed pews and…
-
Thou Shalt Not Date A Trump Supporter (Or Lie With One)
It all started, as it so often does for me, with the cutest dog I had ever seen. We were playing with the puppy in his family’s sprawling uptown apartment, sipping something expensive that had been decanted into a crystal bottle. Then we were kissing in an armchair. Then he was leading me to his…
-
Theater Complicity In Nazi Germany — And Here
The word “complicit” has become so popular in the first years of the Trump administration that it can register as an empty gesture at a damning concept. Your tax dollars go to separating children from their parents at the border; you are complicit, and what does that mean? How could you change it? You, personally,…
-
No, You Really Don’t Need To Take A DNA Test
If you are thinking of getting yourself genetically tested, you are probably sick. Literally. Because, while genetic testing can provide useful medical information about you, it only rarely tells you anything useful about where your ancestors are from. On the other hand, if you do a personal DNA test, you are in danger of buying…
-
What’s In The Iraqi Jewish Archive, Anyway?
The Iraqi Jewish Archive, as the Forward explored in a recent series of articles, has significant symbolic meaning. To Iraqi Jews and their descendants, exiled from their home country starting in 1950, the archive, a trove of artifacts brought to the United States for restoration in 2003, represents the rich communal life and history they…
-
Schumer And Toomey Work Against Iraqi Jewish Archives’ Return, State Department Ponders Options
The Forward recently published an investigative series on the Iraqi Jewish Archive, a trove of items from Iraq’s exiled Jewish Community currently in the United States. Read all three parts: “The Last Relics Of Iraq’s Jewish Past Are In America. Should They Be Returned?.” “In Exile, Iraqi Jews Are Desperate To Reclaim Their Artifacts —…
-
Who’s Collecting Racist, Segregation-Era Memorabilia?
As antiques go, this pair of white enameled cast iron drinking fountains, both chipped and one missing the spigot and guard, might have seemed a bit overpriced at $8,625 when they was sold at Cowan’s Auctions, in Cincinnati, but the reason buyers were acquiring it was not that they were thirsty. One of the fountains…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
Fast Forward Rep. Max Miller says driver called him a ‘dirty Jew’ and threatened to kill his family. A local doctor turned himself in.
- 2
News As Israel attacks, what is life like for Jews in Iran?
- 3
Opinion Bombing Iran, Donald Trump is triggering a tragedy that Thucydides foretold long ago
- 4
Culture Why is Israel’s attack on Iran called ‘Rising Lion’ — and what does the Bible have to do with it?
In Case You Missed It
-
News Schumer, highest-ranking Jewish official, slams Trump over Iran strike — but leaves his own position unclear
-
Fast Forward Why some see an ancient biblical enemy in Iran
-
Opinion If war with Iran goes badly for the U.S., Jews will be the scapegoat
-
Fast Forward Israel puts civilians on high alert as Iranian leaders vow response to US strikes
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
