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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A Deadly Explosion In Chicago, And More Of The Forward Looking Back
100 Years Ago A massive gas explosion rocked the heart of the Jewish ghetto on the West Side of Chicago. At least 40 people were killed and hundreds were wounded in the blast, which occurred in the early morning hours on the 800 block of West 14th Place while most of the residents were sleeping….
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Do We All Have an Inner Gandhi — and a Hitler Too?
When Ajay Raju saw Jitish Kallat’s “Covering Letter” installed in India two years ago, he was struck by the experience of walking through the mist “screen” or “curtain,” upon which was projected a 1939 letter that Mahatma Gandhi wrote to Adolf Hitler. “You almost feel as though you’ve crossed the threshold of history,” says Raju,…
The Latest
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What I Lost Growing Up in a Home With No Religion
At the age of twenty, in Columbia’s School of Graduate Studies, I met the young philosophy student I would marry a year later. His mother had been recently widowed and, during her year of mourning, had developed a close friendship with her rabbi. When we announced our engagement, she expressed the wish that we would…
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How Time’s Bannon Cover Shows Us A Stark Vision Of Evil
In December, Time Magazine named Donald Trump the Person of the Year. On their cover they placed that incredible, deeply nuanced, subversive picture. Lurking behind Trump on that photo was an ominous shadow, that, as many viewers pointed out, did not correspond to the lighting, and could only have been the product of Photoshop. It was…
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Meet the Author Calling for a General Strike To Resist Trump
On Monday, January 30, The Guardian published a provocatively-titled opinion piece by author Francine Prose: “Forget protest. Trump’s actions warrant a general national strike.” In the column, Prose pondered the successes won by airport-based protests of President Donald Trump’s January 27 executive order on immigrants and refugees, which prevents all Syrian citizens from entering the…
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Betsy DeVos Allegedly Plagiarized This Education Organization. Here’s Their Response.
Tuesday, January 31 brought an unexpected development in the already fraught battle over the confirmation of Betsy DeVos, President Donald Trump’s nominee for Education Secretary. As The Washington Post reported, written responses DeVos delivered to Senator Patty Murray, ranking member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pension, appeared to plagiarize multiple sources,…
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How Hannah Arendt Is Being Used and Misused in the Age of Trump
Hannah Arendt, who wrote extensively about authoritarianism, the nature of evil, and power, is having a bit of a moment. Currently circulating the internet (my twitter feed, at least) are two interesting articles regarding the Jewish philosopher’s legacy. First, we have Zoe Williams’ piece for The Guardian, “Totalitarianism in the age of Trump: Lessons from…
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Why The National Endowment for the Arts Is So Vital To America
President Donald Trump’s administration is considering eliminating The National Endowment for the Arts, according to a widely cited but unconfirmed report on plans for sweeping Federal budget cuts that was published in The Hill. The idea of removing the NEA has been sparking outrage in America’s artistic and literary community. “The estimated security cost for…
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WATCH: How Charlie Chaplin Captured the Immigrant Experience 100 Years Ago
Hopeful individuals and families cross an ocean, only to arrive in a strange country where, still culturally and financially at sea, they scrape by dint of their wiles and compassion for one another. Yes, Charlie Chaplin’s 1917 short film “The Immigrant” presents a romanticized caricature of the immigrant experience. Still, in a time when the…
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Why Nazi Propaganda Is Not As Relevant As You Might Think
One of the first things viewers see at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s traveling exhibition “State of Deception: The Power of Nazi Propaganda,” which recently opened at the U.N., is a quote from 1924 by Adolf Hitler: “Propaganda is a truly terrible weapon in the hands of an expert.” And, as the exhibition will show,…
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These Are America’s Most Endangered Jewish Communities
There are 51 names on the list of the dead and the dying. They range in condition from having been diagnosed with a fatal disease, to being in the throes of death, to having already passed from this world, nothing left but a memory. They are in Niagara Falls, New York, and Lake Charles, Louisiana,…
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