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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The towering Jewish critic who taught me to grok art and hate Picasso
After Max Kozloff died at 91, a New York community came together to remember and to mourn
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‘Auschwitz On The Beach’ Compared Refugee Crisis To The Holocaust. Cancelling It Was Wrong.
Last week, Germany’s premier contemporary art exhibition decided not play host to “Auschwitz on the Beach.” Jewish groups successfully pressured documenta 14, which takes place every five years in the city of Kassel, into cancelling the controversial piece. A performance by Italian writer and artist Franco “Bifo” Berardi, “Auschwitz on the Beach” took its name…
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Israel’s ‘Fauda,’ Hailed For Political Enlightenment, Gets Examined By The New Yorker
The Israeli TV show “Fauda” has been a phenomenon, both in its home country and abroad. After premiering in Israel in 2015, the thriller won six Ophir Awards, the Israeli equivalent of the Academy Awards. In 2016, Netflix picked up the show’s first and then in-production second seasons; on the streaming site, the show screens…
The Latest
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So, Is ‘Cosmopolitan’ An Anti-Semitic Slur Or Not?
Russian scholars remain aghast at Donald Trump’s senior policy adviser Stephen Miller’s use of the word “cosmopolitan,” and some warn that it is a very important signal. “Stephen Miller’s references to “cosmopolitan bias” in the media are so transparently anti-Semitic that it is hard to believe people are not seeing it,” said Russell Valentino, Professor…
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Novel Of Jewish Familial Strife Among Finalists For Prestigious Prize
Bethany Ball’s debut novel, “What to do About the Solomons,” has made the short list for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize. Her book, set between California and Israel, tells the story of a Jewish family beset by financial scandal. The other finalists are “As Lie is to Grin” by Simeon Marsalis, “Empire of…
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David Grossman, Rock N’ Roll Hero?
Between winning the Man Booker International Prize and having a stage adaptation of one of his novels spark a high-profile controversy upon its United States premiere, Israeli novelist David Grossman has had quite the year. Now he’s topping it off by becoming a rock n’ roll hero. As a commemoration of the 50th anniversary of…
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How The Age Of Trump Is Reflected In Julius Caesar’s Roman Coins
Just past the display of coffins from 13th-century BCE that once belonged to military legend and antiquities obsessive Moshe Dayan, a remarkable new exhibit of Roman coins at The Israel Museum, in Jerusalem, feels strangely contemporary. Before magazine covers, television shows, “fireside chats,” Twitter, and, of course, Donald Trump, coins were a method of asserting…
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How The Ritchie Boys Helped Win World War II For America
Sons and Soldiers: The Untold Story of the Jews Who Escaped the Nazis and Returned with the U.S. Army to Fight Hitler By Bruce Henderson William Morrow, 448 pages, $28.99 As the Nazi noose pulled ever tighter in Germany, many Jewish families prioritized sending their eldest sons to freedom. A few years later, some of…
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Film & TV How A Ukrainian Silent Film Star Became One Of The 20th Century’s Greatest Filmmakers
Before she was a filmmaker, Yuliya Solntseva was the Queen of Mars. As the title character in the 1924 silent film “Aelita,” she vamps and struts her way around elaborate constructivist sets representing her kingdom on the Red Planet. Decades later, she would take her place in history by directing a trilogy of dazzlingly virtuosic…
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Marc Chagall-Inspired Play Takes Top Edinburgh Theatrical Prize
A play about the marriage of Marc and Bella Chagall has won the Carol Tambor Best of Edinburgh Award. The Award, presented annually since 2004 and considered the most prestigious of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, comes with a unique prize: A production in New York City. Any Fringe production yet to be staged in New…
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He Brought Us ‘Fiddler,’ ‘Evita’ And ‘Cabaret’ — But Is A Musical About Him Any Good?
We learn surprisingly little about the Broadway legend Hal Prince in his new musical, “Prince of Broadway.” But one thing we do learn is this: When Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick offered him the chance to direct “Fiddler on the Roof,” he demurred. “I explained that I was not familiar enough with the history of…
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The Author Of ‘Horsemen Of The Trumpocalypse’ Explains Why Gorka Makes The Cut
John Nichols, who is national correspondent for the leftist Nation magazine, thinks people are writing too much about how terrible Donald Trump is. It’s not that he disagrees. Nichols is worried that an obsessive, if understandable, focus on the president is allowing the backgrounds and activities of his senior appointees and major supporters—the people actually…
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