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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Liberal New York Jews Must Engage With Orthodox — History Proves It
JEWISH NEW YORK: THE REMARKABLE HISTORY OF A CITY AND A PEOPLE By Deborah Dash Moore NYU Press, 512 Pages, $30 You see it everywhere now: anxiety about America’s Jewish future. Panel discussions and synagogue sermons and angsty op-eds, alarmed missives with a touch of bewilderment, all wondering about the right way forward. We’re intermarrying,…
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Julius Lester, Beloved Author, Activist And Scholar, Dies At 78
(JTA) — Julius Lester, an African-American singer, scholar and activist whose conversion to Judaism in 1982 came as a shock to those who only remembered his role in a bitter, racially charged school strike in New York’s Ocean Hill-Brownsville neighborhood in 1968, has died. His family announced his death, which came after a brief hospitalization,…
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Film & TV ‘One Of Us’ Could Win An Oscar — But Does It Really Deserve One?
Heidi Ewing’s and Rachel Grant’s documentary “One of Us,” recently shortlisted for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Film, portrays with compassion and thoroughness the lives and world of three young Hasidic Jews — Ari, Etty and Luzer — who have, at tremendous personal cost, abandoned their insular communities in Brooklyn and Monsey, New York…
The Latest
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Film & TV The Inspiring True Story Behind The Must-Watch RBG Biopic
It’s difficult to think of a more compelling title for a Ruth Bader Ginsburg biopic than that of one forthcoming in 2018: “On the Basis of Sex.” Yet that phrase, which evokes the still-relevant endeavor to ensure that women will not be treated differently than men because of their gender, was not originated by the…
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Books How Vilna’s Jews Rescued Their Books From the Nazis
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. For hundreds of years, books played a powerful role in the lives of Vilna’s Jews. The city was home to the two most influential publishing houses of religious and secular books, Romm and B. Kletskin, as well as the great Strashun Library. Several synagogues, houses of study…
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Mathilde Krim Was The Oskar Schindler Of The War Against AIDS
Oskar Schindler is celebrated for saving the lives of 1,200 imperiled people, so how can one begin to describe the achievement of Mathilde Krim, who by most accounts helped to save the lives of millions? The dauntless advocate of AIDS research, prevention, and treatment who died on January 15 at age 91, was motivated by…
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Zubin Mehta’s Replacement Is 29-Year-Old Wunderkind
Zubin Mehta has been the musical leader of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra for four decades. In the next two years, The New York Times reports, he will cede his directorship of the Philharmonic to Lahav Shani, who has been alive for only three-quarters of that time. Shani, 29, a pianist and conductor, made his first…
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1968, Turbulent Year In World History, Remembered In New Exhibit
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. This year marks 50 years since the tumultuous year of 1968. In New York, a unique new exhibit at the Steven Kasher Gallery highlights iconic photographs of that memorable year. Among them are a number of images portraying Jewish celebrities, Israel and Jewish-related themes. The exhibition “Day…
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The Real Reason Donald Trump Loves Norway — Hint: It’s Not The Fjords
Why Norway? Well, we know why President Donald Trump wondered aloud why more people from Norway don’t emigrate to the United States in comparison to those from “shithole” countries in Africa and Latin America. It’s because only the day before Trump had met with Erna Solberg, the prime minister of Norway. The president’s attention span…
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Is An Arizona Family Haunted By A Yiddish-Speaking Ghost?
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Usually, reports of alleged paranormal events feature people who suspect that their house is haunted, or believe that they’ve seen a UFO or received a signal from a long deceased relative. Rarely, however, is the main focus of such a report a Yiddish word. But that’s just…
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Philip Roth Is Immersing Himself In Jewish History, And Doesn’t Know How To Respond To #MeToo
Philip Roth, almost 85 years old and seven years into retirement, is just another Upper West Sider who might be mistaken for Bernie Sanders. Except, that is, for the persistently thwarted Nobel hopes, the all-too-timely novels about American demagoguery and the graphic and controversial portrayals of male sexuality. In a new interview with Charles McGrath…
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