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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Beneath Joy Of ‘Beauty And The Beast,’ A Songwriting Duo’s Grief
Disney’s 1991 animated hit “Beauty and the Beast” opens on a note of frustrated promise, as the protagonist, Belle, wends her way through her small French town. Curious and bookish, Belle feels she can’t realize her dreams while grappling with the constraints of country life. The story of of the film’s famous songs — “Be…
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Film & TV Larry King Talks Growing Up Brooklyn — And Missing J.D. Salinger Interview
For a complete history of broadcasting, you do not need to go through archives or visit a museum. Just have a chat with Larry King. The iconic broadcaster, now 83, is coming up on 60 years in the business, having first started on radio on May 1, 1957. Along the way he has interviewed everyone…
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Is This Comic Book Holocaust Survivor Being Turned Into A Nazi?
Generally, it’s bad form to suggest Holocaust survivors are Nazis. And yet, Marvel comics appears prepared to do just that. On a recent cover, Magneto, the X-Men supervillain, is depicted as belonging to the evil Nazi-analog organization Hydra. Magneto is canonically a Holocaust survivor. His experience at Auschwitz led him to lose faith in humanity;…
The Latest
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Jewish Philanthropist Establishes Kansas City As Cultural Mecca
When he would go to New York on art-buying excursions with his late wife, Marion, Henry Bloch would balk at the price tags. “It was very expensive,” the 94-year-old H&R Block founder and philanthropist said. “They talked me into it.” Asked what he meant by “very expensive,” Bloch repeated, “Very expensive.” Bloch was on hand…
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Meet The Collectors Bringing Art Nouveau To Israel
Art collector Anat Meidan came into a grainy focus over Google video, framed against a well-stocked bookshelf. Behind her, her house in the Tel Aviv neighborhood of Neve Tzedek looked airy and bright. Her husband Joe sat in on our interview, a large Art Nouveau poster hanging on the wall above his head. Art Nouveau…
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A Tale Of Madness, Murder, And Mathematics
There’s a well-known formula for creating a juicy story known as “The Three M’s” – murder, madness, and mathematics. Okay, so maybe not, but there is at least one story around that satisfies both the “juicy” and “three M’s” categories: the story of Andre Bloch (which first came to my attention via the blog of Dr….
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One Of New York’s Most Liberal Rabbis Walked Around As A Trump Supporter For A Day: This Is His Story
The bride squinted at my red “Make America Great Again” baseball cap, then looked me in the eye. “Do you really like Trump?” To which I replied, “Are you really a bride?” She pouted, turning her head away as her mother started laughing. “Honey, it’s a costume, he’s kidding, it’s Purim, right?” she explained to…
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50 Cover Versions Of ‘Stardust’ That Are Better Than Bob Dylan’s — And Three That Aren’t
Pardon us for not losing our minds with excitement over Bob Dylan’s much-praised new recording of Hoagy Carmichael’s “Stardust,” which was released late last week as a preview of Triplicate, his three-album set of American standards that’s due out at the end of March. Sure, Dylan has long earned the right to do whatever the…
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Why Aren’t There More Jewish Superheroes?
‘Marvel, Please Cast an Asian-American as Iron Fist,” Keith Chow wrote at the Nerds of Color site three years ago when Netflix first announced plans for the series, which debuts March 17. Marvel didn’t listen; Finn Jones, who is white, plays the title role in “Iron Fist.” This is disappointing, but not exactly unexpected. The…
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Preserving Ladino As ‘Act Of Resistance’ Against Trump
(JTA) — One-year-old Vidal doesn’t know the significance behind the lullaby his father sings him at bedtime. He knows it helps him fall asleep, but not that the Ladino song is part of an effort to teach him what served as the lingua franca of Sephardi Jews of the Ottoman Empire for over 500 years. And he doesn’t…
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Comedy Is Easy, Dying Is Hard
‘I don’t want to be buried in Jersey,” my husband quipped the first time I raised the issue of an exit plan. We’re comedy writers, and though I had always enjoyed Martin’s jokes, I needed him to take this seriously. “Where do you want to be?” I asked. “Here,” he answered. “I plan on staying…
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