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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Why Elijah Will Have Some Company At This Year’s Passover Seder
We usually divide up the holidays: Yom Kippur breakfast at our daughter Samantha’s; Rosh Hashanah dinner at our apartment, and Seder at our daughter Lisa’s. Making out my grocery list this year — I’m responsible for the matzo ball soup and gefilte fish — I suddenly thought about Libby and felt a rush of emotion….
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As We Celebrate Our Exodus, Let’s Not Forget Our Role In Slavery
While most of New Orleans sits down to a dinner of red beans and rice, our seders will be beginning for us — porch doors flung open to let in Elijah (and the season’s first mosquitoes), bottles of wine clustered like brass quintets on tables as the corner church bells strike six. It’s Passover Louisiana…
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A New Take On An Old Heist, And More To Read, Watch, And Do This Weekend
Sometimes we all feel the need to throw off constraints; some just do so with greater aspirations towards humor than others. While Zach Braff’s reinterpretation of “Going in Style” starring Michael Caine, Alan Arkin, and Samuel L. Jackson, has so far met mixed reviews, its leads are reliable comedic talents. In the film, the three…
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What Is It With The Government And The Holocaust?
Ever since its first days, the Trump Administration has had an issue with its Holocaust history. First there was Trump’s ridiculously short, vapid Holocaust Remembrance Day statement, in which he insinuated that Jews should be grateful that Trump took the time to make any kind of statement at all. And now, in a very slightly…
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Did Brian Williams Really Quote Leonard Cohen To Praise Syria Strike?
The United States’s strike on a Syrian airfield has generated confusion across the political spectrum, from President Trump’s far-right supporters’ anger at the move to the guarded approbation of usual Trump skeptics like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. Perhaps the most confusing response, though, came from MSNBC’s Brian Williams, who, discussing the strike on his…
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Why ScarJo’s Whitewashed ‘Ghost’ Is A Jewish Assimilation Parable
“When we see our uniqueness as a virtue, only then can we find peace,” Chief Daisuke Aramaki (Takeshi Kitano) declares in the new 2017 live action reboot of the classic Japanese anime “Ghost in the Shell.” It’s an ironic moral for a film that is already infamous for its whitewashed casting. If the film really…
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For Better And Worse, Don Rickles Embodied American Discourse
Don Rickles, who died on April 6 at age 90, weathered over a half-century of comedic trends, seeing his insult humor absorbed into everyday conduct. He was not always an insult comedian. Raised in the Jackson Heights area of Queens by his parents, Max Rickles and Etta Feldman, Rickles studied at the American Academy of…
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How To Celebrate Passover On a $30,000 Budget
This Passover season, an increasing number of Jews will not be gathered around Bubbe’s dining room table for the first Seder. Instead, they will be at luxurious resorts, from Aruba to the Austrian Alps; some may even be going on an African safari. The rest of the travel industry may be flat, but Passover packages…
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Detroit Star Ian Kinsler On Stepping Out Of Hank Greenberg’s Shadow
In a sport where players generally peak in their late-twenties and decline precipitously thereafter, Ian Kinsler’s early-thirties revival has been an unexpected joy to watch. A three-time All Star second baseman (and two-time 30-30 player) during eight seasons with the Texas Rangers, Kinsler has somehow kicked things into even higher gear since being traded to…
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LISTEN: A Beautiful Long Lost Work By Igor Stravinsky
Starting today, The Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) will begin a five day performance run one of the all time great “lost works” of music – Igor Stravinsky’s “Chant Funebre” (Funeral Song). The piece, a short orchestral work, was written in 1908 on the occasion of the death of Stravinsky’s mentor Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. As the story goes,…
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Remember Don Rickles With 7 Of His Greatest Screen Appearances
Don Rickles, famous insult comic, passed away on April 6 from kidney failure. He was 90 years old. Mourning is a serious business, so it likely wouldn’t have been Rickles’s favorite activity. In honor of his almost-relentless preference for humor, remember his life through seven of his greatest comedic moments, below. 1) Surprising Frank Sinatra…
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