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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Film & TV
Yiddish Musical of ‘The Golden Land’ Emerges Somewhat Tarnished
Appropriately located at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Battery Park within view of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene (NYTF) is attempting to redefine its mission and aesthetic while celebrating the Yiddish language, with few if any English words thrown in for good measure. Its renewed commitment to…
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Remembering the Jewish Voice Behind Cindy Lou Who and Rocket J. Squirrel
The American Jewish voice actor June Foray, who died on July 26 at age 99, proved that being a mensch could be a prerequisite for creating a legacy of memorable animated cartoon characters. As she noted in her memoirs, she was born June Forer in Springfield, Massachusetts, of Lithuanian and Ukrainian Jewish ancestry. She would…
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How David Axelrod Stays True To His Progressive Jewish Roots
The University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics is a hive of activity. Students are testing out a theory in the lobby; another group is peppering a visiting fellow with questions, and upstairs, staffers are researching an upcoming guest. Presiding over it all is the institute’s founder and director, David Axelrod, senior adviser to Barack Obama…
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The Trump Resistance Begins On Broadway
The telescreens mounted above the doorways from the Hudson Theatre’s lobby to its auditorium — you might call them Samsung plasmas, but you’d be missing the point — display some familiar slogans: “War Is Peace”; “Ignorance Is Strength”; “Love Is Fear.” “This Bill That Cuts Billions From Medicaid Does Not Cut Medicaid” is not among…
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Why Norman Podhoretz’s ‘Brutal Bargain’ Still Matters
Norman Podhoretz admitted it himself — the premise of “Making It” no longer holds. “I think it’s not true anymore, in fact it might be the opposite,” he told me in an interview. The neoconservative intellectual raged in his 1967 memoir about the culture’s duplicitous attitude toward success: encouraging people to pursue wealth while shaming…
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Donald Trump Is Bad At Doodling. Which Presidents Were Better?
As a wise Twitter commentator yesterday observed, we’ve lived through, uh, less stressful times. WHAT A MONTH TODAY HAS BEEN — this b (@BryanByczek) July 27, 2017 But now it’s Friday, and you can rely, probably, on having health care until at least next week. Let’s unwind with an assessment of how President Trump is…
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Everything You Need to Know About Judaism’s Saddest Day of the Year
Tisha b’Av, the Ninth of Av, is the commemoration of the destruction of Jerusalem’s Temple. And it’s also, basically, Catastrophe Day for the Jews. It’s the day we consolidate all of our thousands of years of sorrow into one, 25-hour long inferno. Here’s what traditional Jews are mourning on this day, according to the Mishnah…
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The Life And Times Of Charles Bronfman, Distilled
Distilled: A Memoir of Family, Seagram, Baseball, and Philanthropy By Charles Bronfman with Howard Green HarperCollins, 386 pages, $26.97 Charles Bronfman is one of North America’s most important Jewish philanthropists, so a new autobiography is worth a look. And, since his philanthropy is built on whisky and generally designated for progressive causes, it’s of special…
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32-Time Primetime Emmy Winner Sheila Nevins On Having The Best Revenge
She is famous for being outspoken, and in conversation, Sheila Nevins doesn’t disappoint. In a recent two-hour phone chat, Nevins, 78, the venerated president of HBO Documentary Films and author of the recently published memoir-cum-satire-cum-tell-all “You Don’t Look Your Age…And Other Fairytales” is, at turns, self-deprecating, other-deprecating, biting, blunt, wistful, and funny — always funny….
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Michiko Kakutani, Formative New York Times Book Critic, Reviews 8 Jewish Writers
Michiko Kakutani, who as The New York Times’s longtime chief book critic earned both admiration and the ire novelists to whom she dished out less-than-favorable reviews — said novelists tended to be white, male, and accustomed to praise; make of that what you will — is stepping down from her post. As the Times announced…
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‘To The End Of The Land’ Shows The Dream Of Israel — And Its End
A chorus of actors in IDF fatigues raced to the bare white walls framing the stage. Minutes later, when they stepped away, those walls were covered in childlike drawings of a bucolic countryside: Hills, trees, birds, a stream. It was the rare theatrical choice that evokes real wonder, but in “To the End of the…
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