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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I have seen the future of America — in a pastrami sandwich in Queens
San Wei, which serves pastrami sandwiches along with churros and biang biang noodles, represents an immigrant's fulfillment of the American dream
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How A Feminist Scholar Revealed Sylvia Plath’s Allegations Of Ted Hughes’s Abuse
The literary world has been recently abuzz over reports that a letter written by poet and novelist Sylvia Plath, which has never been made public, alleges that her husband, the poet Ted Hughes, physically abused her two days before she miscarried their second child. The letter, written to Plath’s American psychiatrist and frequent correspondent Dr….
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62 Years Ago Today, the Jewish World Lost Its Greatest Genius
On April 18, 1955, Albert Einstein passed away. In the following days, the groundbreaking physicist’s death was met with grief on all fronts. Then-President Dwight Eisenhower eulogized the scientist, commenting “No other man contributed so much to the vast expansion of 20th century knowledge.” The New York Times, in an obituary, lauded Einstein’s moral courage,…
The Latest
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Why It’s So Hard To Be A Kushner In The Age Of Jared And Ivanka
People used to be curious about my first name, but now, everyone wants to know the real deal with my last name. Specifically — am I related to Jared Kushner? The short answer: no. I am also not related to other famous Kushners: Tony, for instance. Or Rabbi Harold. Or France’s famed Bernard Kouchner. Or…
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Music Would Leonard Cohen Find This Gigantic Mural Embarrassing?
Leonard Cohen’s getting a gigantic tribute in Montreal. But at least one prominent local thinks the late cultural icon would have cringed at his 28,000-square-foot, 20-story likeness plastered on a downtown building. Writing for the Montreal Gazette, writer Bill Brownstein called the massive mural an “ill-fitting tribute… that feels so wrong.” “The fact of the…
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How Richard Gere’s ‘Norman’ Became The Unlikeliest Cinema Hero
You already know Norman Oppenheimer. He’s the guy no one can remember inviting to the party, and yet here he is, handing out business cards and offering to put you in touch with one of his many well-heeled connections. Or he’s pressed against the velvet rope on a rainy night, insisting he’s with the band….
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Remembering Jesse Zel Lurie, Witness To A Century Of History
Jesse Zel Lurie, who died in Florida on April 10 at age 103, proved that there was nothing like being on the spot to advance a journalistic career. New York-born in 1913, he made Aliyah in the 1920s and attended high school in Haifa. In 1935, he started writing for The Jerusalem Post, then known…
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Uncovering The Secret Tunnel That Helped Jews Of Vilna Escape The Nazis
“Holocaust Escape Tunnel,” the latest episode in the PBS science series “Nova” follows a group of scholars and engineers as they use the latest ground radar techniques to re-discover an important piece of Jewish history in Vilna. Napoleon called Vilna (now officially Vilnius) the “Jerusalem of the North.” It was home to Elijah ben Solomon…
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These Photos Of Borscht Belt Ruins Changed My Life
I grew up in the “mountains,” or as others called it “the country.” Throughout my entire life, family, friends and neighbors uttered these words as if no other mountains or country existed anywhere else in the wide world. Five years ago when I began working on “The Borscht Belt: Revisiting the Remains of America’s Jewish…
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Read The Groundbreaking Orthodox Film Story That’s Now An Award Finalist
Editor’s Note: Simi Horwitz’s stories on the Orthodox world have been named a finalist in the prestigious Deadline Club awards. Read her complete story of Orthodox women filmmakers here. The Haredi world is generally viewed as an insular patriarchal community that shuns movies. Virtually nobody owns a TV. Still, a fledgling, shadow film industry has…
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Exclusive Story Of Paul Newman’s Lost Film Now An Award Finalist
Editor’s Note: Allan M. Jalon’s story on the rediscovery of Paul Newman’s film “On The Harmfulness Of Tobacco” has been named a finalist for the Deadline Club Awards in the category of arts reporting. You can read the entire story here. Paul Newman directed a pioneering, independent film shot at a Yiddish theater on Manhattan’s…
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Remembering The Man Who Translated The Holocaust’s Most Haunting Poem
John Felstiner, the distinguished translator and literary scholar who brought Paul Celan into English and who also translated Pablo Neruda, will be remembered at a memorial at Stanford University today. Felstiner taught at Stanford for nearly fifty years, in English, Jewish Studies and Comparative Literature. He is the author of an essential biography of Celan,…
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