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, The Beatles Weren’t Jewish — But Their Hairdresser Certainly Was
It was early June 1967, and Leslie Cavendish faced a rare dilemma: War had broken out in the Middle East, and the very survival of Israel seemed at stake. For Cavendish and his friends in London, the possibility that Israel might be destroyed touched something deep inside their Jewish hearts, and they all felt the…
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Film & TV Mussolini’s Peculiar History With Fox News — And The Jews
It may not have come as a total surprise to those who have watched him closely that former White House staffer Stephen K. Bannon is a huge fan of Benito Mussolini. According to an interview with Bannon in the Spectator, he “adores” the fascist dictator, who may well have been the originator of the term…
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The Secret Jewish History of St. Patrick’s Day
If you are Jewish and you feel drawn somehow to celebrating St. Patrick’s Day, there are more than a dozen good reasons why. St. Patrick’s Day and Purim typically appear on the calendar within a few weeks of each other. In the same way that on Purim one is encouraged to drink to the point…
The Latest
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Film & TV Movie News: Steven Spielberg Helped Shia LaBeouf Get Into Yale, Tiffany Haddish Wants to Host Oscars
This week’s movie news is flush with some of our favorite movie Jews. From Shia LeBeouf — Steven Spielberg’s estranged muse — to Darren Aronofsky, whose film “Mother!” has been received with a smattering of boos, we’ve culled the best film stories from Culture and the Shmooze. Read on if you so choose! 1) Jewish…
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Art Architect Richard Meier Accused Of Sexual Harassment
Five women have accused Richard Meier, a Pritzker Prize-winning architect famous for designing Los Angeles’s Getty Center, of sexual misconduct, according to a March 13 New York Times article. The alleged episodes span 30 years and include descriptions of groping, indecent exposure and forcible kissing. After being informed of the allegations, Meier announced that he…
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National Geographic’s First Jewish Woman Editor Confronts Magazine’s Past Racism
National Geographic has, since it was founded in 1888, introduced people across the world to cultures different than their own. And, in doing so, it has been racist. Thus writes Susan Goldberg, editor in chief of National Geographic, in an editorial introducing the magazine’s April issue, which is themed around race. “It hurts to share…
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Books ‘Everything Is Horrible And Wonderful’ Reminds Us That Addiction Doesn’t Care Who You Are
“EVERYTHING IS HORRIBLE AND WONDERFUL” By Stephanie Wittels Wach Sourcebooks, 288 pages, $25.99 Death in general is sad — this we all know to be true. The death of a loved one can be paralyzing. A loss like that cuts so deep that one might justifiably wonder how those left behind remain standing. And for…
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Google Translate for Yiddish? It Ain’t Worth Bupkis.
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Several years ago I wrote an article for the Forverts describing the bizarre phenomenon by which a Google search for the innocent Yiddish word “meydlekh” (girls) yielded results for pornographic websites, listings for Canadian escorts and so forth. Were pornographic websites actually advertising in Yiddish? No, it…
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Art New Report: The Arts Contributed $763 Billion to the US Economy
The Trump administration has proposed a cut to funding for the National Endowment for the Arts and other cultural organizations in its 2019 budget — but a new report provides evidence that US cultural exports represent an extremely important sector of the economy. On March 7, Hyperallergic reported on a new study from the US…
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Art Anish Kapoor Calls Out the NRA For Using His Sculpture in a Political Ad
Anish Kapoor, a renowned sculptor of Indian-Jewish descent who won last year’s Genesis Prize, viciously denounced the National Rifle Association nearly a year after the organization used footage of his iconic Cloud Gate sculpture in a now-infamous political advertisement. According to the Washington Post, the sculpture appears briefly on screen in last year’s “clenched fist…
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With a New Director, Klezkanada Looks to the Future
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Since its founding in 1996, more than 10,000 people have attended Klezkanada, the annual festival of Jewish culture and Klezmer music held in Quebec’s Laurentian mountains. Despite Klezkanada’s ambitious scale (besides music it features theatrical workshops, Yiddish classes, creative writing seminars and concerts), the organization never had…
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