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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Hitler’s Jewish ‘Sweetheart’ Was A 7-Year Old Girl
Adolf Hitler spent his first birthday as Chancellor of Germany embracing and laughing with a seven-year-old Jewish girl. He called her “sweetheart,” and she called him “Uncle Hitler.” On April 20, 1933 at the Berghof, Hitler’s residence in the Bavarian Alps, the Nazi leader posed for photos with Rosie Bernile Nienau, whose grandmother was Jewish…
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Stan Lee And The Death Of A Jewish-American Idealism
A friend of mine once said there are three unarguably American creations: Baseball, Jazz, and Comic Books. Jews historically had a hand in all of them, but thanks to geniuses like Stan Lee, the latter is what we can claim as truly ours. Stan Lee’s passing marks the end of an era not only for…
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Comic Book Visionary Stan Lee Is Dead At 95
In the beginning, before the Marvel Cinematic Universe and its constellation of movie stars and superheroes, there was Stan Lee. The Hollywood Reporter writes that Lee, the former editor-in-chief at Marvel Comics passed away November 12 at the age of 95 in Los Angeles. He is survived by his daughter J.C., younger brother Larry Lieber…
The Latest
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In Russia, A Jewish Director’s Trial Marks A New Threat To Freedom
At the Cannes International Film Festival in May, Kirill Serebrennikov was everywhere. His nametag on a table at a press conference. His film “Leto” mentioned as a top contender for the Palme d’Or. His eyes looking out from square-frame glasses, printed on a paper bag the actress Franziska Petri wore over her head. On a…
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Einstein Fled Germany Amid Anti-Semitic Threats In 1922. Here’s What He Wrote About Exile.
In 1922, more than a decade before the Nazis rise to power in Germany, Albert Einstein went into hiding. Now, a letter written after his hasty escape from Berlin has been unearthed. The letter to Einstein’s sister Maja, discovered by an anonymous collector, is dated August 12, 1922. It’s unclear where Einstein was when he…
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Film & TV 5 Questions For Documentary Filmmaker Nathaniel Kahn
Nathaniel Kahn, director of the Oscar-nominated documentary “My Architect” about his relationship with his architect father, Louis Kahn, thinks we’re confusing value with asking price. Over the last few years, Kahn infiltrated auction houses, the private galleries of well-heeled collectors and the grubby or extravagant studios of contemporary artists to get a panoramic view of…
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Film & TV The Secret Jewish History Of Robin Hood
Robin Hood is well known as a defender of oppressed populations. But one aspect of his story that has mostly been lost to time, however, is his role as protector of Jews, who figured prominently in ballads and dramatic texts that began appearing in 15th- and 16th-century England. Aside from his fundamental mission of tikkun…
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Theater For Dori Berinstein, ‘The Prom’ Is A Heartland Show With A Jewish Soul
Dori Berinstein’s latest Broadway venture, “The Prom,” was sparked by a Mississippi media circus and a two-sentence pitch. In the spring of 2010, the circus paraded through Itawamba County Agricultural High School. The school, near Tupelo, canceled its senior prom rather than allow Constance McMillen to bring her girlfriend to the dance and, possibly worse,…
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December 3: Manhattan: ‘Never Is Now’ Summit On Anti-Semitism
The Anti-Defamation League’s 2018 “Never Is Now” summit on “Antisemitism and Hate” will take place on December 3 in Manhattan. Buy tickets here. Forward editor-in-chief Jane Eisner will be a panelist at this year’s ADL conference, which is designed to discuss the rise in anti-Semitism and what drives it. She is joined on the roster…
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Music How A Jewish Kid From The Upper West Side Became The World’s Best Banjoist
Arguably the best banjo player in the world is — wait for it — a Jewish kid from the Upper West Side of Manhattan. His name is Béla Anton Leoš Fleck, and reached by phone at his home in Nashville, he agreed that what may at first seem an unlikely pairing of man and instrument…
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What Really Happened With Jason Blum’s Israel Film Festival Anti-Trump Speech?
On the night of November 6, as the polls for the midterm elections were closing on the west coast, America’s divisiveness was on raucous display at the Steve Tisch Cinema Center in Beverly Hills. Jason Blum, producer of “Get Out” and head of Blumhouse Productions, was accepting the Israel Film Festival’s Achievement in Film and…
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