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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Next Stop For ‘The Band’s Visit’? Broadway
“The Band’s Visit,” a theatrical adaptation of the 2007 film of the same name, will appear on Broadway this coming fall. The musical, which premiered Off-Broadway last fall at the Atlantic Theater Company, consists of a book by Itamar Moses and music and lyrics by David Yazbek. Following an Egyptian band as it accidentally stumbles…
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Celebrate Bob Dylan’s 76th Birthday With His 10 Most Jewish Songs
While Bob Dylan has, throughout his life and career, engaged in all sorts of mythologizing and playful biographical falsification, it has never been in the service of denying his heritage. This son of a middle-class appliance salesman from the Upper Midwest, who grew up with a Yiddish-speaking grandmother down the hallway in an extended Jewish…
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‘Oslo,’ ‘Indecent’ Take Home Obie Awards
A number of themes can be identified in the seemingly endless sequence of New York theater awards: On Broadway, everybody loves Ben Platt, Off-Broadway, everyone loves Taylor Mac, and when it comes to new plays, J.T. Rogers’s “Oslo” and Paula Vogel’s “Indecent,” alongside Lynn Nottage’s “Sweat,” are the big names to know. While Monday night’s…
The Latest
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Celebrate The Moog Inventor’s Birthday With This Bizarre Moog Shabbat Service
Today is Robert Moog’s birthday, and while you may not know his name or who he is, you almost certainly know of his invention – the Moog Synthesizer. Moog (pronounced MOHG), born in New York City on this day in 1934, changed the face of music in the 1960’s – opening up the world of electronic sound…
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10 Things Donald Trump Thinks Are ‘So Amazing’ Aside From Yad Vashem
The message that Donald Trump wrote in the guest book of Yad Vashem — “It is a great honor to be here with all of my friends. So amazing + will never forget” — has been drawing criticism for Trump’s vapid and flippant yearbook-style message. Which got us wondering — if Yad Vashem is “so…
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Film & TV Fundamentalism And Feminism Square Off In ‘The Women’s Balcony’
‘The Women’s Balcony,” the Israeli film written by Shlomit Nehama and director Emil Ben-Shimon, could easily have turned into a polemic, awash in stereotypes, about the ultra-Orthodox versus the more liberally minded in one small, closely knit Israeli Orthodox congregation. But thanks to the talents of the actors and the creative team, the film is…
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The Secret Jewish History Of James Bond
Editor’s Note: Sir Roger Moore, who gained fame for playing the role of James Bond in the 1970’s and ’80s has died at the age of 89. In his honor and in his memory, we present our own history of James Bond. It’s hard to imagine anyone less Jewish — or more goyish — than…
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Why The Big Basquiat Sale Is Art’s Capitalist Apocalypse
An untitled painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat sold on May 15th for $110.5 million at a Sotheby’s auction. To which the only sensible response is – so what? Imagine for a moment that it was not a painting that had been purchased, but rather a yacht. Suddenly the interest, for most people, is gone – “billionaire purchases…
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A Eulogy For Alan Mintz — A Person In His Fullness
Editor’s Note: The following is a eulogy that was delivered at Alan Mintz’s funeral on May 22, 2017. Alan was my friend, my havér, my colleague, my confidant, my thought-partner, my fellow davener and fellow dreamer. His last great project, which he completed to perfection, was dedicated to Shay Agnon’s long-neglected masterpiece, Ir umelo’ah, A…
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How This Film About Modern Orthodox Women Turned Into A Surprise Hit
(JTA) — It’s safe to call the Israeli film “The Women’s Balcony” the opposite of a Hollywood blockbuster. The movie, directed by Emil Ben-Shimon, is a sensitive, slice-of-life story that focuses on the rift caused in a modern Orthodox community in Jerusalem when a Hasidic rabbi offers to fill in for the congregation’s leader, who…
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One Author, Two Radically Different Holocaust Stories
Hell’s Traces: One Murder, Two Families, Thirty-Five Holocaust Memorials By Victor Ripp Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 224 pages, $25 By Julia M. Klein Victor Ripp, an American academic and author, is the descendant of two European Jewish families that met radically different fates. On his mother’s side, the Kahans, a wealthy clan skilled at the…
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