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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Film & TV 8 young Jewish comedians on what ‘SNL 50’ means to them
'Saturday Night Live' may be entering middle age, but these rising Jewish comics are just getting started.
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‘Mein Kampf’ Is Back — And There Are Reasons To Worry About That
Yesterday, news broke that the new annotated version of Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” had become a non-fiction best seller in Germany with around 85,000 copies sold. The book had previously been banned from publication in the country (though it could still legally be read if a copy could be found). But in 2015, the copyright,…
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Joseph Roth’s ‘The Hotel Years’ Is A Mirror Of Our Times
Although Joseph Roth’s “The Hotel Years” first appeared in 2015, the beginning of 2017 seems, unfortunately, to be the perfect time to open the text. The book is a collection of short pieces that Roth, one of the preeminent journalists of his time (at one point, the Frankfurter Zeitung was paying him at the staggering…
The Latest
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Remembering Rolf Noskwith, the Jewish Cryptographer Who Helped Beat the Nazis
The cryptographer Rolf Noskwith, who died on January 3 at age 97, proved that “The Imitation Game” could be followed by the hosiery game. As a key member of the team of mathematician Alan Turing, portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch in the Oscar-nominated film “The Imitation Game,” Noskwith helped break German military codes to win World…
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What Was a Good Jewish Boy Like Him Doing in a Disco Like That?
A “good Jewish boy from New Rochelle” who took up photography after moving to Manhattan, Bill Bernstein got his first freelance assignment from The Village Voice in 1978: Shoot a black-tie dinner for President Jimmy Carter’s mom, Lillian Carter, at a venue called Studio 54. Sensing something sexier when he saw the club readying for…
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Billie Lourd Breaks Silence on Deaths of Mother Carrie Fisher and Grandmother Debbie Reynolds
Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds were known as entertainment icons to millions around the world, but they were known as “mom” and “grandma” to 24-year-old actress Billie Lourd. Lourd broke her silence on the news on Monday, sharing an old photo of herself, Fisher, and Reynolds on Instagram. With it, she wrote, “Receiving all of…
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The Secret Jewish History of Strange Fruit
Editor’s Note: Rebecca Ferguson, an “X-Factor” winner, recently made headlines when she was invited to sing at Donald Trump’s inauguration. Ferguson responded by saying that she would perform if she could sing “Strange Fruit,” the haunting, classic song about lynching made famous by Billie Holiday. A few years back, we looked at the Jewish history…
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Meet the Businessman Introducing Kids in 12 Countries to Jewish Books — For Free
Harold Grinspoon is not a scholar, he is a businessman – a fact which he reminded me of multiple times throughout our conversation. Yet, despite his protestations, Grinspoon has done more than most in terms of cultivating the next generation of Jewish learners. He isn’t a lecturer, an author, a rabbi, or in any way…
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Philosopher Martin Heidegger Spent Years Trying To Convince His Brother To Become A Nazi
Martin Heidegger, the much celebrated and much maligned German philosopher, is back in the news. As it turns out, his Naziism and anti-Semitism run far deeper than originally thought (we already knew it was bad, but it’s gotten worse). The Los Angeles Review of Books recently published a review (a translation of a piece that…
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How My Jewish Working Class Background Taught Me About Donald Trump
We live in a time of easy slogans and overly rigid categories. Since the election, countless pundits and friends have told me that I need to better understand white working class America. I’m now considered a member of the liberal media elite, or however you want to call someone who’s published a novel, earned a…
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Why We Need a Million Jew March
My fellow Jews! Our existence in America has never been in greater peril. Anti-Semitic clouds gather over the land like never before. Whether or not you are fervently Zionist, skeptically Zionist, Zi-curious, believe in a two-state solution, a seven-percent solution, a saline solution, anything but a final solution, really, you must protest the neo-Nazi menace!…
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That Famous Image of Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds Has a Beautiful Backstory
By now, most of us have seen that phenomenal, heartbreaking photograph of a young Carrie Fisher watching her mother, Debbie Reynolds perform at the the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas in 1963. In the photo Fisher, aged six, sits in the foreground on a stool backstage –- a tiny gray cherub directing our gaze towards the…
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Culture Why saying ‘L’shana Tova’ on Rosh Hashanah may not be the correct phrase
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Culture You can buy Sukkot gift boxes that say ‘tuchus’ on Amazon
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Culture Hitler is trending on TikTok again — and they’re trying to make him seem like a nice guy
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Film & TV Netflix finally gave Jews our Hot Rabbi. Too bad every other Jew in the show sucks
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