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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Nato Green and San Francisco Activists Give Nancy Pelosi a New Spine — Literally
Perhaps even more disheartening than the prospect of a Trump-induced apocalypse is the reaction of the Democratic party as it stampedes towards that Apocalypse, in what often looks like a desperate race to see who can capitulate first and farthest to the new regime. Americans are being asked to “reunite a divided country,” “end the…
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Was Jill Stein’s Recount Always Destined For Spectacular Failure?
Well, in perhaps the least surprising news of the week, Jill Stein’s recount has come to an inconsequential end. You may remember that back in November, Stein and the Green Party filed for election recounts in three states: Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Of the three, only Wisconsin actually ended up conducting a recount. The results?…
The Latest
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Books Meet Franz Kafka and Simone de Beauvoir’s Book Designer
Earlier today, the LA Review of Books published an interview with Jewish book cover designer, Peter Mendelsund. Even if you don’t recognize the name, if you’re a reader you’ve almost certainly seen his work. Among other projects, Mendelsund has redesigned covers from the back catalogs of such notable authors as Franz Kafka, Simone De Beauvoir,…
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Did This Novel Foretell America Under Trump?
One morning back in early January, 2015, I sat down to write the novel that would become “Tell Me How This Ends Well.” I wanted to write something that explored American Jewish identity and that captured what it meant to be living through great political unrest and a sharp rise in anti-Semitism here at home…
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Did Kanye and Trump Trade Jewish Gossip — or Just Say ‘L’Chaim’?
Rapper Kanye West paid a visit to Trump Tower on Tuesday to visit with the man he told an audience recently he would have voted for had he voted on Election Day. Two days after that concert, on November 21, the hip-hop superstar cancelled his remaining concerts and was admitted to a Los Angeles hospital,…
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Jake Gyllenhaal to Headline ‘Sunday in the Park With George’ Broadway Revival
It’s been a good year for Stephen Sondheim: a new musical in the works, a documentary reviving his brilliant flop “Merrily We Roll Along,” and now a star-studded revival of one of his best-loved shows, “Sunday in the Park with George,” which will have a 10 week run on Broadway this spring. The production, which…
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Music WATCH: Israel Singer Aviv Geffen’s Hebrew Version of Dylan’s ‘Hard Rain’
Nobel Laureate Bob Dylan’s music has enduring power; this past weekend, Patti Smith moved the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony audience to tears while singing his classic “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.” The song has also moved hearts and minds in Hebrew. In 2000, Israeli bard Aviv Geffen, seen as the protest musician of his generation,…
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Reclaiming Art Lost in the Holocaust is About to Become Much Easier
70 years after the end of World War II, Holocaust survivors and their families are still fighting to reclaim art stolen from them by the Nazis. For survivors in the United States, that fight is poised to become somewhat easier. This past week, both the House and Senate passed a bill that, if signed into…
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The Time I Almost Saw Walt Disney Vomit
In Laurie Gwen Shapiro’s interview with Sam Adams, a former Hollywood errand boy-turned-dealmaker, Adams turns to Shapiro and asks her if he ever told her about the time that he saw Walt Disney nearly vomit. She asks him to elaborate and, well, here’s the rest of the story: “One day when I was at the…
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Do You Think Differently When You Write in Another Language?
One afternoon, when I was 22, I nervously asked my boss if I could attend a French writing workshop at the Alliance Française each week — during work hours. It was my first job out of college, and I worked as a copy editor at a daily financial newspaper covering the municipal-bond market. I was…
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It’s Trump’s America — and the Era of the Pitchforks Has Just Begun
The morning of November 9, nobody in my subway car was looking at each other. Normally, avoidance of eye contact is a gesture of civility, the way New Yorkers grant each other pockets of mental space when physical space is scarce. And normally, a moment of mutual acknowledgment precedes the retreat into aloofness. The morning…
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News School Israel trip turns ‘terrifying’ for LA students attacked by Israeli teens
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Fast Forward Why the Antisemitism Awareness Act now has a religious liberty clause to protect ‘Jews killed Jesus’ statements
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Music After decades of waiting, we’re finally getting a Bob Dylan-Barbra Streisand duet
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Fast Forward Trump administration condemns destructive pro-Palestinian protest at University of Washington
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Opinion 80 years after Germany surrendered, we’re still learning the real lessons of World War II
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Fast Forward Government reviewing visas of pro-Palestinian protesters who occupied Columbia library, after about 75 arrests
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