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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Music
Listen To A Track From William Shatner’s Christmas Album
Christmas came early. Consequence of Sound reports that William Shatner, the King David of spoken-word song is releasing his first ever Christmas album with an impressive roster of guest artists. It gets better: It’s called “Shatner Claus — The Christmas Album.” The track list, boasting 14 standards, has Stooges legend Iggy Pop on board for…
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Music Paul Simon Gets Exceedingly Jewish At His Penultimate Concert
The first major Jewish moment of the first of two “farewell concerts” by Paul Simon at Madison Square Garden last night (the second takes place tonight and the curtain comes down on the final show of the “Homeward Bound Farewell Tour” at Flushing Meadows Corona Park on Saturday night) occurred at an unlikely moment. It…
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The Secret Jewish History Of ‘60 Minutes’
As of this month, the influential TV newsmagazine “60 Minutes” has brought investigative journalism, political commentary and celebrity interviews into American living rooms for half a century. If you ever detected something inherently Jewish about the program, its creator and longtime producer, Don Hewitt — whose Russian-born father changed his name from Hurwitz when he…
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Rachel Kushner Makes The Man Booker Shortlist For ‘The Mars Room’
The 2018 Man Booker Prize announced on Thursday, September 20 that Rachel Kushner has made the short list for her novel “The Mars Room.” Kushner’s book follows Romy Hall, a woman serving two consecutive life sentences in a California correctional facility. “The Mars Room” was lauded for its unsentimental portrait of prison life and its…
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The New York Times Crossword Was Yiddish-Themed For Yom Kippur
While many of us spent yesterday reflecting in shul, The New York Times crossword section paid tribute to Yom Kippur with a Yiddish-themed puzzle. Spoilers ahead for those who haven’t done it yet. Because it was just a Wednesday puzzle the answers weren’t too esoteric. “Tchotchke,” “Schmaltz,” “Chutzpah,” “Oy Gevalt,” “Megillah” and “Verklempt” dotted the…
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‘Sesame Street’ Writer Confirms: Bert And Ernie Are Gay — And One Is Jewish
In a September 16 interview “Sesame Street” writer Mark Saltzman put years of speculation to rest, letting the world know that Ernie and Bert are a gay couple — at least, he wrote them that way. Saltzman told Queerty that while he worked on scenes between the odd couple roommates, he drew from his own…
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The ‘Lolita’ Story Nabokov Kept Hidden
Sarah Weinman probably reads more than you do. According to tallies she has shared on Twitter (where she has more than 400,000 followers), she read 462 books in 2008, 400 books in 2010, 340 books in 2011 and 380 books in 2013. She started reading at two and a half years of age, she explained…
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Music Paul Simon’s 7 Most Jewish Songs
This past summer, Paul Simon has been touring across North America, the United Kingdom and Europe on what is billed as “Homeward Bound — The Farewell Tour.” This month, the singer-songwriter brings the traveling show to its conclusion with one last mad dash across the Eastern United States, including stops in New Orleans; Florida; Atlanta;…
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Film & TV Bert And Ernie Are Lovers, Says ‘Sesame Street’ Writer Mark Saltzman
Putting to rest decades of speculation, former “Sesame Street” writer Mark Saltzman has confirmed to Queerty that Ernie and Bert are an item – at least in his eyes. Not only are the couple lovers, Saltzman says they are avatars of himself and his late partner Arnold Glassman. “I always felt that without a huge…
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From Phyllis Chesler, A Politically Incorrect Memoir Laden With Gossip And TMI
A Politically Incorrect Feminist: Creating a Movement With Bitches, Lunatics, Dykes, Prodigies, Warriors, and Wonder Women By Phyllis Chesler St. Martin’s Press, 320 pages, $27.99 Women of a certain age will remember Phyllis Chesler’s landmark book, “Women and Madness.” Her 1972 examination of how psychiatry failed women has never been out of print, as she…
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The First-Ever Yiddish-Cuban Opera? Probably.
‘ Frank London’s “Hatuey: Memory of Fire,” a good bet to be the world’s first Yiddish-Cuban opera, is enjoying its U.S. premiere at the Alexander Kasser Theater at Montclair State University through September 23. Given the story, which is based on a Yiddish epic poem written by Ukrainian-Jewish immigrant Asher Penn in Havana in 1931…
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