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
-
Film & TV
Why Do White People Get Mad When We Call ‘Wonder Woman’ White?
When I wrote a piece at the Forward pointing out that Gal Gadot is white, I did not expect there to be a backlash. Gadot is, after all, playing a white character; she was clearly cast because people see her as white. The argument that she was a person of color was transparently made in…
-
Ben Platt, Bette Midler, Scarlett Johansson To Perform At 2017 Tony Awards
Ben Platt, Bette Midler, and Scarlett Johansson will be among the performers and presenters at the 2017 Tony Awards, which will be presented on Sunday, June 11. Platt is nominated for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical for his star turn in “Dear Evan Hansen,” and Midler is up…
-
This Soviet Avant-Garde Journal Published Some Of The 20th Century’s Greatest Minds
There’s a line in one of Vladimir Mayakovsky’s poem-play “Vladimir Myakovsky” (the young poet was nothing if not confident) that strikes me as among the most ferocious lines ever put to paper: “We will eat this century like meat, we’ll eat our fill, licking the plates!” The oeuvre of Mayakovsky, one of the great early…
The Latest
-
Film & TV Why We Need Superheroes — Especially Wonder Woman
“Wonder Woman” is the biggest hit of the year, the savior of Warner Brothers and the greatest boon to the chattering classes since Trump’s election. Only four days into its release, it’s brought in 200 million dollars and almost as many reaction pieces. Is it too feminist? Is it not feminist enough? Gal Gadot is…
-
Why That Leering ‘Wonder Woman’ Review Does A Disservice To Criticism
In the modern, click-hungry media, one way to ensure a piece racks in readers is to have it be egregiously offensive. Exhibit A: David Edelstein’s recent review of the Gal Gadot-led “Wonder Woman” for New York Magazine. Much of Edelstein’s review suggests sexism, from his declaration that, despite a lack of the S&M intonations of…
-
Bette Midler, ‘Oslo,’ Win Drama Desk Awards
The 62nd Annual Drama Desk Awards, announced in a ceremony on June 4, showed a lot of love for Broadway’s “Hello Dolly!,” “Oslo,” and “The Little Foxes,” as well as the Off-Broadway production of “The Band’s Visit.” “Hello Dolly!” took home Outstanding Revival of a Musical, Outstanding Actress in a Musical for Bette Midler, and…
-
LISTEN: Bob Dylan (Finally) Delivers Nobel Lecture
The saga of Bob Dylan’s oddly ambivalent acceptance of the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature is finally over, as the singer-songwriter presented his Nobel Lecture on June 4. “When I received the Nobel Prize for Literature, I got to wondering exactly how my songs related to literature,” Dylan said, opening the lecture. After a brief…
-
A Father’s Yiddish Stories Resurrected By A ‘Dreadful Daughter’
A pioneer in 1970s underground comics, Trina Robbins has become a revered writer and “herstorian.” But her own history, as the child of Yiddish-speaking immigrants, eluded her. “I divorced myself from Jewish part of my parents,” she tells the Forward. “I was unappreciative of it – a dreadful daughter.” Her latest project changes that –…
-
Can Jews Enjoy The New Roger Waters Album — Despite His BDS Beliefs?
Can a Jew Enjoy Roger Waters’ new album? Roger Waters, passionate supporter of BDS, purported anti-Semite, and Thom Yorke’s worst nightmare released his long-awaited new album, his first in 25 years when he released the critically acclaimed “Amused To Death.” Can a Jew enjoy this album in good conscience? First, the album itself. There is…
-
Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman Take On Israel — With Stories Of Occupation
Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman, two mainstays of the Jewish literary world who happen to be married to each other, have, in their novels, investigated much of the richness, strangeness and conflict of contemporary Jewish life. But there’s one glaringly large subject in that field that neither has previously taken on: Israel. With “Kingdom of…
-
Weekend Reads: Sex In Books, Lost Cities, And German Philosophers
The internet is a vast pile of garbage filled with the most noxious, and noxiously cloying, filth imaginable — especially now. It’s almost a real-life microcosm of the multiverse theory: Think of any depravity, any stupid opinion, any inane joke, and the internet will inevitably supply it. Being a functionally infinitive reality, it will also inevitably…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
News Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s selection as JTS commencement speaker roils graduating class
- 2
Culture An Israeli genocide scholar looks to Israel’s history to understand ‘what went wrong’
- 3
Holy Ground A Jewish farmer broke ground on a synagogue in an Illinois cornfield. His neighbors showed up to help.
- 4
News Protesters picket Manhattan synagogue over Israel real estate sale, testing Mamdani and new law
In Case You Missed It
-
Culture What the private equity takeover means for the bagel industry
-
Opinion I discovered anti-Zionism at the University of Michigan. I’m glad it lives on there
-
Opinion An alarming new battleground in campus fights over Israel
-
Looking Forward My artist grandmother nearly made aliyah. I don’t know what she’d think of Israel today