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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Why Being A Hairstylist Honors My Jewish Family Traditions
There’s an off-Broadway comedy show that has been around for several years, “My Son The Waiter: A Jewish Tragedy.” The title pokes fun at a stereotype that has Jewish parents disappointed because their child didn’t become a lawyer or a doctor. Like most children of Jewish families whose forebears immigrated to the United States from…
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Why I Can’t Even Bring Myself To Hate Father’s Day
If you’ve read this far you’ve probably done more to observe Father’s Day than you need to. Or you liked the photo of David Beckham who is, it has to be said, a smoking hot dad. Here are some links to help you understand my disinterest in a holiday that’s specifically designed to celebrate me…
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Is There Anything More American Than The Ten Commandments?
Many of us hold the Ten Commandments to be personally significant, whether it’s because we find them religiously meaningful or because we just love the epic 1956 Charlton Heston film “The Ten Commandments.” But for historian Jenna Weissman Joselit, who wrote the column Wonders of America for the Forward for 16 years, they’re a focal…
The Latest
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Film & TV The Jewish Aryan Contradictions Of Scarlett Johansson
Nobody is saying that “Rough Night” is a great film, but what charm it has comes from Scarlett Johansson playing against type. Johansson’s roles tend to cast her as the perfect woman — her last appearance earlier this year as an icy superhuman cyborg in “Ghost in the Shell” was typical. In “Rough Night,” she…
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Meet The Tenement Museum’s New President, Kevin Jennings
The Tenement Museum, a Lower East Side institution devoted to telling the story of American immigrants, has a new president. Come July, Kevin Jennings, recently of the social and environmental justice-oriented Arcus Foundation, will succeed Dr. Morris J. Vogel, who has been the Museum’s president since 2008. Vogel announced his upcoming retirement in January. Jennings,…
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It’s Book Week In Israel — So What Happened To All The Women?
This is Shavua HaSefer, or the Week of the Book in Israel, which means book displays in public squares, literary event marathons, and deep discounts that many serious readers wait for. It’s the best time to find unusual volumes on display, and an ideal moment to check out new books and celebrate the liveliness of…
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The Forgotten Holocaust Poetry Of Hermann Adler
Recently, the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), whose wonderful archive we’ve previously covered here, released the debut issue of their journal of art and design “Full Bleed.” Though “journal of art and design” is MICA’s own categorization, “Full Bleed” includes criticism, poetry, memoir, and more. The first issue, focused on the theme of migration,…
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Hedy Weiss, Chicago Theater Critic, Under Fire For ‘Egregious’ Review
Hedy Weiss, the Chicago Sun-Times’s longtime theater critic, is under fire from the Chicago theater community for her review of the Steppenwolf Theatre’s production of Antoinette Nwandu’s “Pass Over.” The play, which follows two young black ben through a “Waiting for Godot”-like scenario, has garnered generally positive reviews; The Chicago Tribune’s Chris Jones deemed it…
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Jessica Cohen, David Grossman’s Translator, To Donate Man Booker Winnings To Israeli Human Rights Group
Jessica Cohen, Israeli novelist David Grossman’s longtime translator, will donate half of her share of the pair’s Man Booker International Prize winnings to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem. B’Tselem, which operates in the West Bank, states its primary mission as being “to change Israeli policy in the Occupied Territories and ensure that its government,…
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So, How Do You Observe Shabbat In Reykjavik?
Shabbat lasts three days in Reykjavik, Iceland, as I discovered when I found myself there for a writing conference. Shabbat began at 11:16 p.m. on Friday night, according to Chabad’s ever-helpful online calendar that lists candle-lighting times around the world, and finally ended at 1:27 on Sunday morning. Travelers to Iceland in summer often remark…
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EXCLUSIVE: Meet David Grossman, Israel’s Conscience And Man Booker Prize Winner
‘Almost in every book I write there is an individual facing an outer arbitrariness,” David Grossman told me one cold morning shortly before the weather turned to rain. His point was reinforced by the chaos behind him: It was a Monday, and outside, on New York City’s Lexington Avenue, a series of harried workers rushed…
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