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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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…
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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…
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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 —…
The Latest
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Does The New Exhibit At The U.S. Holocaust Museum Go Too Easy On FDR?
On April 23, 2018, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC opened “Americans and the Holocaust,” a new exhibit that places American public opinion in its crosshairs and hopes to buck the belief that many Americans were unaware of the full scale of Nazi Germany’s crimes. “Without offering excuses, the exhibit probes the…
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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…
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Germany And Israel Collaborate On A Brewtiful Beer
What better way to celebrate Israel’s 70th anniversary this summer than a one-of-a-kind cold one? To honor Israel’s septuagennial, the German Embassy in Tel Aviv led an initiative to craft a commemorative brew, one of several projects the embassy is doing to mark the occasion. The beer, simply named “70,” is a collaboration between Israel’s…
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How Jimmy Carter Lost The Vote Of New York’s Jews
How did President Jimmy Carter, an incumbent Democratic president, lose the 1980 Democratic Primary in New York — to a senator from Massachusetts, of all places? It looks like the Jews were behind it. In his new book, “President Carter: The White House Years,” former White House Domestic Affairs Advisor Stuart Eizenstat paints a picture…
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In Bipartisan Effort, Senators May Introduce Bill To Keep Iraqi Jewish Archive In U.S.
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 —…
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How Claude Lanzmann Created Post-War European Jewish Identity
A few years ago at a conference in Paris, I was present at a lecture in French, a language that I understand well enough, but which I speak only with great difficulty. The lecture dealt with the Egyptian-Jewish poet and Holocaust survivor Edmond Jabès. Afterwards I wanted to ask a question, so I began speaking…
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Music Meet Seymour Steinbigle Who Discovered Madonna and The Ramones
Calling Seymour Stein one of the most influential figures in American pop music barely does justice to a 60-year career whose highlights include discovering Madonna, the Ramones, the Smiths, and Talking Heads. Now, in his autobiography “Siren Song’” Stein tells all — and we mean all — about his unbelievable life, with seemingly every instance…
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The Photograph That Gave Weegee His First Big Break
In the summer of 1936, Arthur Fellig, the newspaper photographer who would soon be known as Weegee the Famous, was already calling himself Weegee. But he was pretty far from being famous. He had quit a steady job as a darkroom printer about eighteen months earlier and started trying to make a living as a…
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Fast Forward Why some Satmar Hasidic leaders endorsed Zohran Mamdani as mayor, stunning many Jewish voters
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Culture Mamdani’s first statement on antisemitism as mayor-elect got some weird pushback
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News How Mamdani became New York’s next mayor, with Jews divided between fierce opposition and fiery support
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Culture Mamdani quoted Eugene Debs in his victory speech — there’s a long Jewish history there
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