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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Film & TV 8 young Jewish comedians on what ‘SNL 50’ means to them
'Saturday Night Live' may be entering middle age, but these rising Jewish comics are just getting started.
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In The AIDS Pandemic, William Hoffman Saw Parallels To The Holocaust
The American playwright and editor William Moses Hoffman, who died on April 29 at age 78, expressed his Judaism through dramatizations of the tragic AIDS pandemic. As Jonathan Friedman’s “Rainbow Jews: Jewish and Gay Identity in the Performing Arts” notes, “Among the first dramatists to write plays about AIDS were gay Jews.” At a time…
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Shobha Nehru, A Quiet Witness To History, Dies At 108
Shobha Nehru, who died on April 25 at age 108, proved that humanistic ties to family roots never fade. Born Magdolna Friedmann in Budapest in 1908, she witnessed Hungarian anti-Semitism, which led her father to change the family name to the less Jewish-sounding Forbath. This new appellation led to a school nickname, Fori, which she…
The Latest
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Film & TV Leo Tolstoy, ‘Hello, Dolly!’ and ‘Oslo’ Lead Tony Nominations
The 71st Tony Award nominations have been announced, led by “Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812” and “Hello, Dolly!” Here’s the full list: Best Play: “A Doll’s House, Part 2” “Indecent” “Oslo” “Sweat” Best Musical: “Come From Away” “Dear Evan Hansen” “Groundhog Day The Musical” “Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812”…
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Despite Threats, Congress Proposes NEA Funding Increase, Not Elimination
If there is one thing those of us who oppose Trump can celebrate about the man and his presidency, it is his propensity to abandon proposals he had previously championed — like completely dismantling Obamacare or putting Hillary Clinton in prison, to name a few. His administration’s new budget blueprint, which excludes, for instance, funding…
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‘Oslo,’ ‘Indecent,’ And ‘If I Forget’ Nominated For Drama Desk Awards
Nominees for the 62nd Annual Drama Desk Awards, announced this past Thursday, include J.T. Rogers’s “Oslo,” Paula Vogel’s “Indecent,” and Steven Levenson’s “If I Forget.” Those three plays were each nominated for Outstanding Play. Nominees for Outstanding Musical included “The Band’s Visit,” while “Falsettos” and the Barrow Street Theater’s site-specific staging of “Sweeney Todd: The…
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POEM ALERT: Why Is The New Yorker’s Editor Playing Al Franken?
Editor’s Note: A report that New Yorker David Remnick will be playing the role of Al Franken in a one-night-only Public Theater has moved our correspondent to verse, for better or worse. One is a hero of the liberal bastion The other’s prose stylings are always in fashion When the latter acts the former, on…
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What Did May Day Mean To Us In 1898?
Editor’s Note: The following article was published in the May 1, 1898 edition of the Forverts. I still recall the first of May in 1890 when fate sent me to Geneva where a May Day celebration was to take place for the first time since last year’s International Congress. Geneva’s workers decided to celebrate it…
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What Ever Became of the ‘Children of Jerusalem’?
Editor’s Note: ‘What Ever Became of the ‘Children of Jerusalem,’” a longform story by Naomi Zeveloff about the fates of seven Israeli and Palestinian children who starred in a 1990’s Canadian documentary series, is the 2016 Sigma Delta Chi award winner for Non-Deadline Reporting. Between 1991 and 1996, seven Israeli and Palestinian children starred in…
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Why Carl Reiner Was The Dreamiest Boss I Ever Had
At 26, after taking dictation and guff from assorted people in show business with egos ranging from inflated to absurdly inflated, I met Carl Reiner. On talk shows he’d seemed like an incredible mensch, so when I heard from a friend that his secretary was leaving, I desperately wanted her job. Reiner would be respectful…
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Mordecai Richler’s Cartoonagrapher Looks Back On a 50 Year Career
Canada’s foremost editorial cartoonist is finally opening up about his long-term relationship with Mordecai Richler, the larger-than-life Montreal-born writer. “I was his official cartoonagrapher,” laughs Terry Mosher, whose acid-dipped cartoons have lampooned blowhards of all stripes in the Montreal Gazette for more than a half-century. “I drew him more than 40 times, including a Time…
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Caught At Gunpoint, I Had The Best Shabbes Of My Life
I was June 1, 1971, and I was 18 years old. I’d signed a lease with no guarantors for a four-room tenement apartment at 505 West 122nd Street, complete with mice and roaches, just off heroin-ridden Amsterdam Avenue on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Sam Weintraub from Great Neck, New York, couldn’t be too choosy for…
Most Popular
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Culture Hitler is trending on TikTok again — and they’re trying to make him seem like a nice guy
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Culture You can buy Sukkot gift boxes that say ‘tuchus’ on Amazon
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Fast Forward Sitcom star encourages non-Jews like her to hang mezuzahs on their homes
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Opinion A maelstrom around Rashida Tlaib shows how broken discourse about the war has become
In Case You Missed It
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Yiddish זשורנאַל „ייִדישלאַנד“ דרוקט ערשטן קאַפּיטל פֿון אַ נײַעם אַוואַנטור־ראָמאַן‘Yidishland’ magazine prints first chapter of a new adventure novel
אויך אין דעם נומער: אַ ייִדישע איבערזעצונג פֿון לידער פֿון אַן אוקראַיִנישן פּאָעט וואָס איז געפֿאַלן אין שלאַכט קעגן רוסלאַנד.
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Fast Forward Israel kills Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah
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Culture On Jimmy Carter’s 100th birthday, assessing the 39th president’s record on the Jews
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Opinion With killing of Hezbollah’s chief, Israel occupies the inarguable moral high ground
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