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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In ‘The Treasurer,’ A Young Jewish Playwright Takes On A Foreign Concept: Hell
Some arrangements seem unchangeable: Life ends in death, children — however reluctantly — love their parents, Jews don’t believe in hell. Not so in Max Posner’s new play “The Treasurer,” which opened at Playwrights Horizons this week. The title refers to a character known as The Son, who takes charge of his mother’s finances after…
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Remembering Arlene Bronstein: Paragon of Persistence and Grace
To speak of the quotidian in Yiddish we use the term yedes montik un donershtik, meaning literally, every Monday and Thursday. Arlene Bronstein took the folksy saying and wore a new groove in it; she spent the last nine years of her montik un donershtiks here at the Forward cataloguing photos, researching queries and generally…
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‘Star Trek’ Goes Less Jewish Than It Has Ever Gone Before
“Star Trek” has always embraced diversity. Gene Roddenberry’s vision of a utopian future was intentionally, ideologically inclusive. The first “Star Trek” series included Asian and black crew members, at a time when that was rare on network television. Later series featured a woman captain and a black captain. The new CBS show, “Discovery” is focused…
The Latest
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Rob Reiner’s War On Russia Is Doomed To Fail
“We have been attacked. We are at War,” says Morgan Freeman in a video posted last week by a new organization called the Committee to Investigate Russia, making the most of his incredible voice. Founded by director, actor, and liberal activist Rob Reiner, the organization is calling for an investigation of Vladimir Putin’s government, suggesting…
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What Was Shimon Peres’s One Final Regret?
No Room For Small Dreams By Shimon Peres HarperCollins, 240 Pages, $27.99 There remains, one year after his passing, a void in Israeli politics in the shape of Shimon Peres. The former president and prime minister was, as Amos Oz eulogized at his funeral in September 2016, a trailblazer who seemed constantly ahead of his…
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Books Why You Should Sneak-Read In Shul This Yom Kippur
My journey, both personally and professionally, in Orthodox and non-Orthodox circles alike, has introduced me to a surprising divide, one that does not map neatly onto the denominational divide but evokes diverging passions that grow more animated as one moves from right to left. Namely: The practice of reading in shul. Every year I try…
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What These Jews Will Be Sneak-Reading During High Holiday Services
When Rabbi Edward Feld was a teenager, he decided to buy a seat for High Holidays services in a synagogue where no one knew his name. Feld was raised on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, and he says that there were always old synagogues that weren’t completely full even on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. By…
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Why Jewish Students Are Finding A Home In The Deep South
Ahhh college. The relaxing campus quad. The funky all-night coffeehouses. The magnolia trees filling the humid air with sweetness. Wait a minute. Don’t most Jews equate the college experience with shuffling past ivy-covered buildings in heavy sweaters? No longer. The amount of Jewish students attending southern colleges has been sharply on the rise. Pockets of…
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Does Russian Studies Have An ‘Alt-Right’ Problem?
A searing essay in The Chronicle of Higher Education calls on the field of Russian Studies to acknowledge the tie between Russia and white supremacy. “David Duke, Richard Spencer, and other white-supremacist leaders have longstanding ties to Russia and Ukraine,” writes Sarah Valentine, who has a PhD in Russian literature from Princeton, and is the…
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New York Values Run Amuck: Ex-Socialists Teach Dogs Commands In Yiddish
There are certain objects and behaviors that are unquestionable hallmarks of New York: bagels with smoked fish, ill-disguised fury at tourists who walk too slowly, humans dressed as Elmo accosting the unwitting in Times Square. But for those like Ted Cruz, who in a long-past era — could it be possible I’m remembering it with…
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The World of Arthur Szyk
In his 1944 self-portrait, “Ink and Blood,” Polish-Jewish artist and illustrator Arthur Szyk, who immigrated to the United States after Nazi Germany invaded his homeland, depicts himself hunched diligently over an elegant working desk, hard at work on a new painting. Its subject, who has come partially to life but remains pinned to the paper…
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