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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Film & TV
The Secret Jewish History of Winnie-The-Pooh
A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh stories have delighted youngsters for over 90 years, as have their numerous spinoffs as TV shows, cartoons, holiday specials, movies and, of course, branded merchandise, all of which made Milne very wealthy. But the story behind the story of how Milne created the complex children’s tale and characters based on his son,…
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Why 83 Is The New 13 For Bar Mitzvahs
This is the fourth in a series of articles examining Bar and Bat Mitzvahs in America. Jeremy Piven had one. So did the former owner of my pharmacy. And Kirk Douglas had two. Stumped? These men all stepped up to the bimah to have a second bar mitzvah. Not to be confused with the now…
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What A Controversial Palestinian Play Can Teach Us About Art As Resistance
The play “The Siege,” created and performed by The Freedom Theater, which is based in the West Bank’s Jenin refugee camp, is itself under siege. It’s the latest lightning rod in an ongoing conflict over how Israel and the Palestinian territories are represented in theatrical productions. The Palestinian play, which is currently being staged at…
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How This Pristine 15th-Century Portuguese Hebrew Bible Survived The Inquisition
COIMBRA, Portugal (JTA) — From its mountaintop perch, the University of Coimbra towers majestically over the downtown square that used to be the regional headquarters of the Portuguese Inquisition. It’s a fitting location for the 737-year-old university, the seventh oldest in the world, which outsmarted and outlived the campaign of persecution against Jews and freethinkers…
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Film & TV ‘Aida’s Secrets’ Opens Up A Pandora’s Box Of Family Memories
For 67-year-old Shep Shell, learning he had a brother and then meeting him for the first time in 2013 was a mind-blowing experience on many fronts. But that was just the beginning. He also learned that his mother, whom he believed had died in a German displaced persons camp in the post-World War II years,…
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Harvey Weinstein Loses His Honor — Putin And Mussolini Get To Keep Theirs
For most Americans, the words “Hollywood” and “légion d’honneur” bring to mind “The Revenge of the Pink Panther.” Among the movie’s classic scenes is when Peter Sellers’s Inspector Clouseau is awarded the medal. By turns, Sellers punctures a drum when he draws his sword, flails at a pigeon perched on his kepi, and becomes entangled…
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Do Bar Mitzvahs Prepare Us For Adult Anxiety?
This is the third in a series of essays examining the Bar and Bat Mitzvah in America. A bar mitzvah has many meanings. Mine was simultaneously a religious ceremony, a miniature family reunion, a finish line marking the end of years of Hebrew school and — still, to this day — the largest party ever…
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When Lin-Manuel Miranda Met Stephen Sondheim
What, exactly, has Stephen Sondheim contributed to musical theater? Lin-Manuel Miranda, in a profile of Sondheim penned for The New York Times Style Magazine, has an answer. “He is musical theater’s greatest lyricist, full stop,” Miranda writes. “The days of competition with other musical theater songwriters are done: We now talk about his work the…
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Why My Bat Mitzvah Was The Happiest Day Of My Life
This is Part 2 in a series of articles examining bar and bat mitzvahs in America. Until the day I married, my bat mitzvah was the happiest day of my life. I realize that makes me an anomaly, or at least a rare species among American Jews, whose bar and bat mitzvah experiences seem freighted…
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Books Everything You Need To Know About Jews And Chocolate Is In This Book
When one of my sons (I won’t say which, to protect his anonymity) was small, if asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, his answer was always the same: an astronaut, a chef and a daddy. I wonder how many people, asked that very question, would answer “a rabbi and a chocolate…
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Why Do We Obsess About Bar Mitzvah Torah Readings — When There’s Little Textual Basis For Them?
This is part 1 in a series of articles examining the Bar and Bat Mitzvah ritual in America. Few institutions represent the American Jewish community like the bar and bat mitzvah. It would be surprising, given this cultural emphasis, if this ritual turned out to be almost as modern as the elaborate parties that surround…
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