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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A Father’s Yiddish Stories Resurrected By A ‘Dreadful Daughter’
A pioneer in 1970s underground comics, Trina Robbins has become a revered writer and “herstorian.” But her own history, as the child of Yiddish-speaking immigrants, eluded her. “I divorced myself from Jewish part of my parents,” she tells the Forward. “I was unappreciative of it – a dreadful daughter.” Her latest project changes that –…
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Can Jews Enjoy The New Roger Waters Album — Despite His BDS Beliefs?
Can a Jew Enjoy Roger Waters’ new album? Roger Waters, passionate supporter of BDS, purported anti-Semite, and Thom Yorke’s worst nightmare released his long-awaited new album, his first in 25 years when he released the critically acclaimed “Amused To Death.” Can a Jew enjoy this album in good conscience? First, the album itself. There is…
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Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman Take On Israel — With Stories Of Occupation
Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman, two mainstays of the Jewish literary world who happen to be married to each other, have, in their novels, investigated much of the richness, strangeness and conflict of contemporary Jewish life. But there’s one glaringly large subject in that field that neither has previously taken on: Israel. With “Kingdom of…
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Weekend Reads: Sex In Books, Lost Cities, And German Philosophers
The internet is a vast pile of garbage filled with the most noxious, and noxiously cloying, filth imaginable — especially now. It’s almost a real-life microcosm of the multiverse theory: Think of any depravity, any stupid opinion, any inane joke, and the internet will inevitably supply it. Being a functionally infinitive reality, it will also inevitably…
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Radiohead Singer On BDS: ‘I Don’t Agree With The Cultural Ban’
In a new interview with Rolling Stone, Radiohead’s Thom Yorke has responded to calls for the band to cancel a July performance in Israel. “I’ll be totally honest with you: this has been extremely upsetting,” he told the magazine. “There’s an awful lot of people who don’t agree with the BDS movement, including us. I…
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Film & TV Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman Is White — Let’s Not Pretend Otherwise
Wonder Woman is, shockingly, the first film in our current decade-plus superhero moment to feature a female lead. But while the film is pioneering in terms of gender representation, in other respects it is not especially innovative. The film does include some black Amazons, and a couple of people of color, but the headline characters…
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‘Mr. Met Is All Of Us Right Now’
In a gesture viewed with shock around the world — ok, just in New York — this past Wednesday night, beloved baseball mascot Mr. Met took the colorfully rebellious step of flipping off a fan. But New York-based writer Sadie Stein thinks we should hold off on the outrage. Last week, pre bird-flipping, Stein, whose…
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Film & TV Kirk Douglas’ New Book Explains How The 100-Year-Old Found True Love
LOS ANGELES (JTA) — When movie star Kirk Douglas married Anne Buydens in Las Vegas, the justice of the peace asked Anne to raise her hand and repeat after him, “I take thee, Kirk, for my lawful husband.” Anne, who had recently arrived in the United States from Europe, raised her hand and proudly proclaimed,…
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EXCLUSIVE: How A Hasidic Dynasty Handles A Succession Crisis
The following essay has been adapted from “Who Shall Lead Us: The Story of Five Hasidic Dynasties in America,” by Samuel Heilman (University of California Press). In his old age, Yoelish Teitelbaum, the first Satmar Rebbe, had outlived his heirs. Although he was leader of the largest Hasidic group in America, with tens of thousands…
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Why I Really Want The Walter Benjamin Biopic To Fail
Writing in “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” Walter Benjamin quotes 20th century French director and film theorist Abel Gance as saying “Shakespeare, Rembrandt, Beethoven will make films . . . all legends, all mythologies and all myths, all founders of religion, and the very religions . . . await their exposed resurrection, and the…
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Why Did Britain Ban This Klezmer Musician’s #1 Song?
Jake Painter, trumpet player, doesn’t look like much of a rabble-rouser. But the genial-visaged British musician’s band Captain SKA has just released Britain’s most popular song — and gotten it banned from a large portion of the country’s radio stations. What’s the issue? “Liar, Liar” is a catchy, furious takedown of the United Kingdom’s current…
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Film & TV The new ‘Superman’ is being called anti-Israel, but does that make it pro-Palestine?
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Fast Forward Tucker Carlson calls for stripping citizenship from Americans who served in the Israeli army
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Music ‘No matter what, I will always be a Jew.’ Billy Joel opens up about his family’s Holocaust history
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Culture She was my Hebrew school bully — and I finally learned what happened to her
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Fast Forward Elon Musk wants your kids to use his chatbot. The same one that praised Hitler.
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Fast Forward Nation’s largest teachers union rejects move to cut ties with ADL
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Culture In this Holocaust story, there are few words, no swastikas, no yellow stars — just movement, passion and empathy
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