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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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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Why ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ Was Really A Jewish Horror Movie
Fifty years ago, In 1968, Roman Polanski’s film “Rosemary’s Baby” was released. It helped to reinvent the modern horror genre. Other than the ethnicity of its director and the fact that it was set in Manhattan, the movie did not seem to be Jewish on the surface. Set in New York City, it tells the…
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Franklin Foer Has Some Scores To Settle With Facebook And Big Data
Franklin Foer’s latest book, “World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech,” posits that technology companies’ monopoly on knowledge, as well as our collective attention span, is changing the way we think. In exchange for the efficiency and convenience provided by the “Big 4” firms — Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon — he argues…
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How A Bookstore Owner In Berlin’s Jewish Quarter Invigorated Anti-Nazi Protests
Can bookstores become a powerful force in the fight against neo-Nazis? As far-right parties find success in Germany and across Europe, and xenophobic nationalist groups take to the streets of Berlin, one shop has set the standard as a site of resistance to such movements. According to an April 9 piece in The New York…
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Film & TV The IDF Made This Film 18 Years Ago — Why Hasn’t Anyone Seen It?
In 2000, the Israeli Defense Forces produced a major feature film that tackled one of the army’s most taboo subjects, the rising number of soldier suicides. The IDF Army Spokesperson’s Film Unit, headed by Michael Yohay, was given virtually unlimited access to the army’s resource: helicopters, tanks, hundreds of extras and permission to film at…
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Why Dating In New York Is Just Like Finding A Therapist
I was two hours into a date with a guy who had a cute dog and a desire to explain the novel “Lolita” in graphic detail, and it was time to go. We were in the middle of Madison Park in Manhattan’s Flatiron District, drinking wine out of cans he had brought in a bag….
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Is There Really Such A Thing As Jewish Anxiety?
I am an anxious Jew. By which I mean (a) I am Jewish, and (b) if I had to pick the overarching emotional theme of my life, it would be fear. Or worry. Or panic. One of my first memories is a pediatrician’s visit where I was so scared of an impending vaccination that I…
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What Bette Davis Can Teach Donald Trump About Fake News
You are teaching a class on media literacy. You want your students to think critically about the truth claims of messages. You bring to the classroom Donald Trump and Bette Davis. You display a Trump tweet about our trade deficit with China: “The U.S. is losing $500 Billion a year…. Cannot continue!” You ask your…
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In Case You Missed It
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Sports Pick-and-deli-roll? Brooklyn Nets draft Jewish duo back-to-back in an NBA first
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Yiddish דאָס אײַנפּאַקן אַ טאָרבע פֿאַרן לויפֿן אין שוצקעלער האָט עפּעס דערוועקט אין מירPacking a bag before running to the shelter hit a nerve in me
בני מער האָט שוין מיטגעמאַכט אַ סך מלחמות אין ישׂראל אָבער די איצטיקע איבערלעבונג איז אין גאַנצן אַנדערש.
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Opinion Pro-Palestinian protesters are suddenly supporting Iran. They might want to talk to some Palestinians
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Culture How Islamophobic attacks on Zohran Mamdani target Jewish voters
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