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
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I have seen the future of America — in a pastrami sandwich in Queens
San Wei, which serves pastrami sandwiches along with churros and biang biang noodles, represents an immigrant's fulfillment of the American dream
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Film & TV The Nazi-Era Thriller That Got Its Director Banned From Filmmaking
Among its various achievements, the 1943 thriller “Le Corbeau” (or “The Raven”) earned its director, Henri-Georges Clouzot, a lifetime ban from filmmaking. Clouzot had made his caustic movie during the height of the Nazi occupation of France for a German-controlled production company called Continental Films, which had been created by Joseph Goebbels to pacify French…
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Totally Gross Domino’s Pizza Celebrates Israeli Independence
Domino’s Pizza launched a line of special edition pies in Israel this week to mark the country’s 70th anniversary. What could better encapsulate Israeli independence better than falafel and shawarma on a pizza, someone in the local franchise offices surely asked. For a country whose culinary star is rising in popularity worldwide because of its…
The Latest
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Music How A Jewish Teacher Helped Jay-Z Find His Passion For Language
Without the support of one Jewish sixth-grade teacher in Brooklyn, Shawn Carter might never have become Jay-Z. During a conversation with David Letterman on the former “Late Show” host’s new show, “My Next Guest Needs No Introduction,” the rapper and entrepreneur discussed how his former teacher, Renee Rosenblum-Lowden, played a critical role in fomenting his…
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In Antony Sher-Led ‘King Lear,’ Humor Becomes An Instrument Of Tragedy
Shakespeare’s “King Lear” has been a different play every time I have read or seen it. It’s a parable about the inevitable abuse of power, a vivisection of the profoundly complex relationships between parents and children, a reflection on the seemingly pre-determined cycles of violence and decay that characterize political society. It is a moral…
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Why The Ten Commandments Are Practices of Liberation
A high school teacher of mine used to entertain his class by rattling off lists of oxymorons: pretty ugly, jumbo shrimp, constant variable. Sometimes he would take the opportunity to editorialize a little: military intelligence, airplane food, liberal religion. Everybody would smirk and the class would go on. The joke relied on the notion that…
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WATCH: On Warsaw Ghetto Uprising’s 75th Anniversary, Remember Heroes With ‘Hymn Of The Partisans’
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Thursday April 19 marks the 75th anniversary of the beginning of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. In remembrance of the occasion, last week I posted a collection of various renditions of Hirsh Glik’s partisan’s song, the “Hymn of the Partisans,” on the Yiddish Forward’s video blog Oyneg Shabes….
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Want To See Chomsky, Rand, Marx And Musk Argue About Technology? Now You Can — In A Puppet Show
If you have ever sat in a critical theory lecture and wished that your professor would be replaced by a group of dapper, miniaturized historical figures who sometimes rap, there’s now a puppet show to satiate that desire. Mexican artist Pedro Reyes will debut a goofy new production, “Manufacturing Mischief,” on April 26 at the…
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How A Cult Israeli TV Show About Soccer Swept Europe (Kinda)
Who cares about Lionel Messi? Well, actually, soccer fans and players of the video game “Football Manager” do care, passionately, about the world’s greatest living soccer player, but the beauty of soccer does not come from millionaire celebrities on manicured pitches. It comes from billions of people kicking balls of all sizes on floors of…
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The Secret Jewish History of Tax Day
Like it or not — and who among us actually likes it — come April 17 (website crashes notwithstanding), you will need to have filed your income tax return with the Internal Revenue Service. Perhaps one way to feel better about the painful and often inconvenient process is to recognize that it has roots in…
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The Virtues Of A Fox Hunt
The Fox Hunt: A Refugee’s Memoir of Coming to America By Mohammed Al Samawi William Morrow, 336pp, $27.99 The story that Mohammed Al Samawi tells in “The Fox Hunt: A Refugee’s Memoir of Coming to America” is one of incredible liberation. First, as a child, from his physical disability into academic excellence, then as an…
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Why Is A Company Run By A Jewish Philanthropist Destroying The Denver Post?
Do you know the story of how Jews came to be known as the People of the Book? After the destruction of the Second Temple, the Jewish people dispersed. Absent the temple that had united them in observance and study, each man was obligated to study Torah for himself. To do this, all men needed…
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