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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In Tel Aviv, Weaving A Better Future For African Refugees
“We don’t have rules. We want the women to feel at home here. If someone comes every day or if they haven’t been for a year, it doesn’t matter,” says Sister Azezet Kidane, co-director of Kuchinate, an African refugee women’s collective in Tel Aviv. The women at Kuchinate, which means “crochet” in Tigrinya (the language…
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November 2: Manhattan: Shabbat Dinner And Film Screening
Join Forward opinion editor Batya Ungar-Sargon at the Film Fest: 20s + 30s Shabbat Dinner on November 2 at the Marlene Meyerson JCC in Manhattan. Hosted by Other Israel Film Festival, New Israel Fund’s New Generations, OneTable and other young leadership groups, the event, which will run from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m., will feature kosher…
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Sharks Defending Britain From Nazis? How ‘Fake News’ Helped Foil Hitler
Could Fake News ever be a good thing? While there are fair objections to the state of partisan journalism today, and some lament the warmongering yellow journalism of the past, a new book suggests that a misinformation campaign launched by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency was a pivotal part of British Intelligence’s plan to thwart the…
The Latest
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The Life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg — Strictly Scrutinized
Ruth Bader Ginsburg: A Life By Jane Sherron De Hart Alfred A. Knopf, 752 pages, $35 Among the virtues of Jane Sherron De Hart’s magisterial and timely biography of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is that it prompts reflection on what it takes — for a woman in particular — to reach the…
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How A Runaway Trapeze Artist-Turned-Surgeon Saved The Big Apple Circus
It’s a scene out of a Norman Rockwell painting: A boy carries a stick on his shoulder with a bandana tied to one end. It contains his next meal; he’s running away from home to join the circus. That’s what Neil Kahanovitz did — with just a few minor differences. For one, there was no…
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Leonard Cohen Found His Inner Picasso In His Final Work
‘So little to say / So urgent / to say it, is the whole of one poem by the late Leonard Cohen. The poem is called “My Career.” Like so much of Cohen’s work, the poem reifies a certain kind of humbleness — before the divine, the beautiful, the mystical. But the modesty may be…
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Music The Beastie Boys Rap On The Making Of ‘Paul’s Boutique’
After the release of “Licensed to Ill” the Beastie Boys’ 1986 debut studio album, the New York-bred hip hoppers had the world at their feet. But with expectations for a follow-up dizzyingly high, the sophomore record, “Paul’s Boutique” was a flop when it came out in 1989. Its reputation has been restored in the years…
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When Chagall Battled For Russia’s Soul
When it was over and done with, perhaps the main thing that stood out about the Soviet Union was its success in restricting the character of its citizens. As Masha Gessen wrote in her 2016 book “The Future is History,” in every totalitarian state “The shaping of the New Man is the regime’s explicit project.”…
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Everything Jewish In Slate’s New American Songbook
On October 18, 2018 Slate revealed their “New American Songbook,” drawn from the insights of critics and musicians including Chuck Klosterman, Carl Wilson and The Hold Steady keyboardist Franz Nicolay. As is typical, Jews over-performed, even beating out those famous Swedish masters of Pop Max Martin and Dr. Luke. Of the 30 tracks to be…
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How Lovely P.G. Wodehouse Was — Such A Shame About The Anti-Semitism
On October 15, Westminster Abbey in London announced plans to dedicate a memorial to P.G. Wodehouse, the humorist whose characters Jeeves and Bertie Wooster have amused millions. Among reported devotees were many readers of Jewish origin, from philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein to the classicist Abraham Wasserstein (1921-1995) of the Hebrew University. Wodehouse, who died in 1975…
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Switzerland’s Oldest Shtetls Are Working To Keep The Culture Alive
18 Miles northwest of Zurich are two shtetls whose homes, synagogues and cemetery survived World War II. And yet, they’re Jewish ghost towns. Only a vanishingly small number of the villages’ once thriving Jewish population remain in the area and the culture they supported is on life support. But a few Jews are hoping to…
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