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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In These Dark Times, Finally Some Hope And Inspiration On Broadway
To whatever extent there is an argument to be made that Terje Rød-Larsen is Israel’s greatest diplomat — it’s a small extent: he is neither Israeli nor a diplomat, and his great triumph has been rendered essentially defunct — it is currently being made where it should be, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan….
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‘Veep’ Takes On Trump’s Washington, And More To Read, Watch, And Do This Weekend
This weekend, as you take breaks from thinking up creative things to do with matzah — it’s a hard pastime to turn away from, we know — turn your attention first to a host of exciting new books. In nonfiction, there’s Dani Shapiro’s memoir “Hourglass: Time, Memory, Marriage,” Ben Greenman’s “Dig If You Will the…
The Latest
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How Richard Gere Went From American Gigolo to American Jew
Joseph Cedar, the Israeli writer-director of the much-admired 2011 film “Footnote,” admitted frankly that he did not seek out Richard Gere to play the Jewish title character in his first English-language film, “Norman, The Moderate Rise And Tragic Fall Of A New York Fixer.” The suggestion was made by one of the film’s producers, Oren…
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Yet Another Polish Culture Director Removed From His Post By The PiS Government
“The day after the fall of Khrushchev, the editors of Pravda, Izvestiia, the heads of the radio and television were replaced; the army wasn’t called out. Today a country belongs to the person who controls communications.” So writes Umberto Eco in his essay “Towards a Semiological Guerrilla Warfare.” I very much doubt that Piotr Glinski,…
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The Secret Jewish History of The J. Geils Band
Guitarist John “Jay” Geils Jr., a jazz-minded musician who formed a blues trio in college that would evolve into the hit-making rock group the J. Geils Band, died on Tuesday at age 71 at home in Groton, Mass. The group was formed in Boston in 1969, and remained a regional powerhouse until it hit big…
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The Talmudic Case Against United Airlines
The violent ejection of a passenger from a United Airlines flight on Monday has received international attention. It has been condemned not just as bad business (which it surely is) but as a symptom of American class warfare and the creeping callousness of American corporate culture. As horrified as I was by the treatment of…
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How One Word Changed The Course Of World War II
One of the most tightly-written communications in military history came more than 60 years before Twitter. On Dec. 22, 1944, Brig. Gen. Anthony McAuliffe had to be awoken from a nap during the Battle of the Bulge when a German delegation arrived at the U.S. encampment in Bastogne, a Belgian town. English and German letters…
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Judith Leiber, Handbag Queen, Was A Jewish Immigrant Success Story
Judith Leiber’s life was one long surprise: Intended by her parents to go into the cosmetics industry, she chose to pursue handbag design, becoming the first female member of the Hungarian Handbag Guild. She survived the Holocaust first by living in a one-bedroom Budapest apartment with 25 other Jews, then in a ghetto basement where…
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Jian Ghomeshi’s Comeback Is The Worst Possible Passover Podcast
With Passover looming, it is a fine time to meditate on the idea of exile. As we know from the Haggadah, we were exiled in the land of Egypt, enslaved by the Pharaoh, and eventually liberated and returned to our native land in Israel. We remind ourselves of the story year after year, of the…
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WATCH: KISS’s Gene Simmons Delivers Emotional Tribute To Chuck Berry
On April 9, the late, great rock ‘n’ roll icon Chuck Berry was laid to rest. His funeral, a four-hour affair marked by performances by Berry’s collaborators and tributes from fans ranging from Paul McCartney to Bill Clinton (both in absentia), took place at St. Louis’s Pageant Theater. Berry, a St. Louis native, lived there…
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Marvel Apologizes For Comic With Hidden Anti-Semitic Content
Marvel Comics has released a statement saying that it will be taking “disciplinary action” against one of its artists after the shocking discovery of hidden anti-Semitic and hard-line Islamist references in an X-men comic book. “X-Men Gold #1” was released last Wednesday. It had been well-received until controversy erupted over the weekend when the references…
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