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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How The Ritchie Boys Helped Win World War II For America
Sons and Soldiers: The Untold Story of the Jews Who Escaped the Nazis and Returned with the U.S. Army to Fight Hitler By Bruce Henderson William Morrow, 448 pages, $28.99 As the Nazi noose pulled ever tighter in Germany, many Jewish families prioritized sending their eldest sons to freedom. A few years later, some of…
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Film & TV How A Ukrainian Silent Film Star Became One Of The 20th Century’s Greatest Filmmakers
Before she was a filmmaker, Yuliya Solntseva was the Queen of Mars. As the title character in the 1924 silent film “Aelita,” she vamps and struts her way around elaborate constructivist sets representing her kingdom on the Red Planet. Decades later, she would take her place in history by directing a trilogy of dazzlingly virtuosic…
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Marc Chagall-Inspired Play Takes Top Edinburgh Theatrical Prize
A play about the marriage of Marc and Bella Chagall has won the Carol Tambor Best of Edinburgh Award. The Award, presented annually since 2004 and considered the most prestigious of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, comes with a unique prize: A production in New York City. Any Fringe production yet to be staged in New…
The Latest
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He Brought Us ‘Fiddler,’ ‘Evita’ And ‘Cabaret’ — But Is A Musical About Him Any Good?
We learn surprisingly little about the Broadway legend Hal Prince in his new musical, “Prince of Broadway.” But one thing we do learn is this: When Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick offered him the chance to direct “Fiddler on the Roof,” he demurred. “I explained that I was not familiar enough with the history of…
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The Author Of ‘Horsemen Of The Trumpocalypse’ Explains Why Gorka Makes The Cut
John Nichols, who is national correspondent for the leftist Nation magazine, thinks people are writing too much about how terrible Donald Trump is. It’s not that he disagrees. Nichols is worried that an obsessive, if understandable, focus on the president is allowing the backgrounds and activities of his senior appointees and major supporters—the people actually…
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Art Will The Real Modiglianis Please Stand Up?
The works of Jewish-Italian modernist painter Amedeo Modigliani are beloved by art critics and libidinous undergrads alike, but they hold a special allure for a less desirable audience: Art forgers. For Artnet, Lorena Muñoz-Alonso recently looked into the proliferation of fraudulent Modiglianis, which reached a scandalous apex in June when an exhibition featuring the painter’s…
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From Mailer To Ginsberg, The Village Voice’s Greatest Contributions To Print Journalism
To the distress of many, iconic New York City weekly newspaper The Village Voice announced this week that it will cease producing a print issue. While a date for the final print issue has yet to be confirmed, the paper’s imminent absence from city newsstands sparked a keen mourning for what it once had been….
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Did These Jewish Directors Make The Best Comedies Of All Time?
The movies most often counted among cinema’s greatest are disproportionally very depressing, but man does not live on melodrama and ennui alone. Because life itself is sad enough, the BBC polled 253 international film critics on their ten favorite comedies, the of which were released yesterday. Unsurprisingly, Hollywood’s Jewish-American filmmakers made quite the impression. The…
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The Secret Jewish History Of Sacco And Vanzetti, Executed Radicals
Just after midnight on Aug 23, 1927, 90 years ago today, the anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were sent to the electric chair in Boston’s Charlestown State Prison. Sacco and Vanzetti, Italian immigrants who formed part of a radical anarchist milieu, had been convicted of the 1920 murders of a shoe-factory paymaster and the…
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Remembering Dorothy Parker, Quip Queen And NAACP Ally
On August 22, 1893, the celebrated author, humorist and cultural critic Dorothy Parker was born. She died at age 73 after a lifetime of writing witty, biting work. “Of course I talk to myself. I like a good speaker, and I appreciate an intelligent audience,” she famously wrote. Parker, who lived with her finger pressed…
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How The Holocaust Shaped The Career Of The Late, Great Dick Gregory
Dick Gregory, the activist and comedian who died on August 19 at age 84, used tragedies of modern Jewish history to illuminate the civil rights struggles of African-Americans. As described in his memoir, out next month from Amistad Books, Gregory marched and was jailed alongside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Medgar Evers. From his…
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