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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Judith Jones, Editor Who Discovered Anne Frank’s Diary, Dies At 93
Judith Jones, the renowned cookbook editor who, early in her career, led the charge for “The Diary of Anne Frank” to be published in English, died yesterday at age 93. Jones, born as Judith Bailey, came upon Frank’s manuscript in a pile of rejected submissions while working as an office assistant at Doubleday in Paris…
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PETA Gave Isaac Bashevis Singer An Incredibly Bizarre Posthumous Award
PETA chose what some may consider a strange way to honor the legacy of both the famed Yiddish writer Isaac Bashevis Singer and the Warsaw Uprising, organizing a lunch, hosted by the Polish supermodel Joanna Krupa, at which they awarded Singer a posthumous PETA “Hero to Animals Award.” A PETA press release praised Singer for…
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New Folksbiene Play: Singing Against Trump’s America
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Thirty-five years ago, Zalmen Mlotek and Moishe Rosenfeld co-wrote the script for a musical called “The Golden Land” in honor of the 85th anniversary of the Forverts, the world’s oldest Yiddish newspaper. The goal then was to depict, through Yiddish song, the first decades of Eastern European Jewish immigration…
The Latest
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Film & TV The Secret Jewish History of Planet of the Apes
Spoiler Alert: If you don’t want to know how “War for the Planet of the Apes” ends, you probably should stop reading this article halfway through.) A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, a science-fiction movie pitting humans against non-human enemies was unleashed upon the world, and from that moment on, the…
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Film & TV The Secret Jewish History Of Sam Shepard
The playwright and actor Sam Shepard, who died on July 27 at age 73, was to all outward appearances as non-Jewish as may be imagined. Yet his writing hovered around such American Jewish creative spirits as Arthur Miller, Bob Dylan and Joseph Chaikin, among others. In such plays as the “Curse of the Starving Class”…
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Remembering Jeanne Moreau — Who Wore A Yellow Star In Solidarity With Jews
The French actress Jeanne Moreau, who died at age 89 on July 31, won immortality as a screen actress of uncommon sensitivity and grace for a long list of major directors, in films such as Jacques Becker’s “Hands Off the Loot” (1954); Louis Malle’s “Elevator to the Gallows” (1958) and “The Lovers” (1959); François Truffaut’s…
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12 Things To Do In August That Will Make You Just A Little More Jewish
Welcome to August: You’re tired of the heat. A chance to walk romantically through falling leaves — maybe even while wearing a sweater, of all things — is beginning to sound appealing, and you’ve suffered too many sunburns to be coaxed back to the pool. Never fear! With great new television premieres, music and theater…
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Why Words Matter When Newspapers Cover Trump
I am an incurable saver of newspapers, and I just couldn’t throw out Israeli newspaper coverage of Donald Trump’s visit to Israel. Something in the language gnawed at me, and now I know what it was: the invocation of Jewish text and tradition to describe an American president who is the most divisive in recent…
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Does The White House Really Need a Jewish Liaison?
The idea of designating a White House staffer to be in charge of relations with the American Jewish community dates back to the Kennedy administration. It is based on the idea that providing a dedicated channel of communication between the administration and the Jewish community could benefit both sides. From feeling the pulse of the…
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Why Yo-Yo Ma Is Fighting To Save Louis Kahn’s Floating Concert Hall
The late architect Louis Kahn is renowned for his impact on landscapes and cityscapes around the world, from the United States to Israel to Bangladesh. But one of his most moving creations, “Point Counterpoint II” was designed to live on the water. The bad news: It’s in immediate danger of being destroyed. The good news:…
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Sam Shepard, Playwright Of Biblical Proportions, Dies At 73
Sam Shepard, a playwright and actor whose work helped revolutionize American theater, died on July 30 at his home in Kentucky from complications of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, otherwise known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. He was 73 years old. Shepard, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his play “Buried Child” and was nominated for an Academy…
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