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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The Secret Jewish History of ‘Game of Thrones’
“Game of Thrones,” the popular medieval fantasy series that one of its creators describes as “‘The Sopranos’ in Middle-earth” — a reference to that other medieval fantasy saga written by a guy with too many R’s in his name, JRR Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” — is full of intrigue and drama, as well as…
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Iconic Brooklyn Seltzer Man Eli Miller Retires
Eli Miller started shlepping seltzer across Brooklyn close to six decades ago. Park Slope transformed from a neighborhood marked by economic and social strife to one where a brownstone cost millions. “Girls” happened. Hipsters happened. “Williamsburg” became a name that evoked the chic, cool, and expensive, an enclave of scrappy artists no more. But Miller…
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David Mamet Has Banned Post-Show Discussions Of His Plays
Do you like the work of David Mamet? Great! (Well, maybe; the Pulitzer Prize-winning dramatist has recently left the Forward’s critics less than enthused.) Do you want to produce, say, “Glengarry Glen Ross?” Go for it. But before engaging the audience in a post-show discussion about the play, make sure you have a casual $25,000…
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The Secret Jewish History Of 7-Eleven
When you walk into your local 7-Eleven today to get your free Slurpee — this being July 11, or 7/11, or, as it is celebrated everywhere, “7-Eleven Day” — consider for a moment that the convenience the store brings is based upon gematria, or the hidden meanings of numbers in Judaism. Everyone knows the meaning…
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Ivanka Trump Was ‘Unelected’ — Is That A New Word?
The internet raged after a photograph of a pink-clad Ivanka Trump sitting at the G-20 meeting in place of the president was snapped by a Russian official and widely shared. “Unelected and unqualified hand bag designer, sitting at a table as an equal with world leaders. America has never looked so ridiculous,” went a tweet…
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Art How Henryk Ross’s Amazing Photos Unearthed The History Of Lodz — And Mine As Well
Memory Unearthed: The Lodz Ghetto Photographs of Henryk Ross At the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, through July 30 The story of the Lodz Ghetto has become folkloric. Chronicled in novels such as Leslie Epstein’s “King of the Jews” and Steve Sem-Sandberg’s “The Emperor of Lies,” this was the place that the dictatorial Mordechai Chaim…
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Why Israel’s Word Of The Year Is ‘Perfect’
Each time I return to Israel, a new word greets me. I usually realize somewhere around baggage claim that a previously unused word is the word of the moment — because it’s plastered on advertisements of all kinds. Whatever the word is, I soon see and hear it everywhere, and I’m always amazed and amused…
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Art These Are The 23 Books You Need To Read This Summer
Summer! The beach! Camp for the kids! And maybe, this time around, endless hours spent inside, staring in horror at Twitter. If that’s a fate you’d like to avoid, look to one of the following books, which promise to be some of the most interesting releases of the summer and fall. Some will distract, some…
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Did The Nazis Really Have A System Of Medical Ethics?
At the conclusion of World War II, the first defendants to testify at the Nuremberg trials were Nazi physicians and public health officials who were interrogated about how and why they conducted horrific experiments on human beings, and mass murder in the name of science and medicine. It’s been convenient to believe that these perpetrators…
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Books Milo Yiannapoulos Hires Dwarfs Wearing Yarmulkes To Mock Rival
Disgraced ‘alt-right’ provocateur Milo Yiannapoulos hired dwarfs wearing yarmulkes to perform at a New York book launch party as part of an elaborate stunt to mock an observant Jewish rival. Yiannapoulos used the dwarfs to ridicule Ben Shapiro, the editor of the conservative website The Daily Wire, at a Thursday night shindig for his new…
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Patti LuPone Isn’t A Jew — But She Plays One On Broadway
Patti LuPone recently discovered that she has something in common with Helena Rubinstein, the makeup mogul and Polish Jewish immigrant she is currently portraying in the Broadway musical “War Paint.” Using the genealogy website 23andMe, she found out that she is 87% Southern Italian and 12% Eastern European and North African. That means she may…
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