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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The Maccabees Were On The Wrong Side of History — So Why Do We Still Celebrate Hanukkah?
Each year, when Hanukkah rolls around, I feel a certain sense of unease. Hmmm. A battle between Jewish zealots and Jews who wanted to partake of the richness of the Greek world around them. I have a feeling I’m on the wrong side of this, Hanukkah-wise. “You like wine?” my friend John, who is of…
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Lena Dunham’s Absurd Comments Are Great Fodder For Comedy Twitter
Continuing a hot streak of idiotic statements unparalleled by anyone other than perhaps our President-elect (very curious as to who holds the record), Lena Dunham said yesterday on the Women of the Hour podcast, “Now I can say that I still haven’t had an abortion, but I wish I had.” Apparently Dunham thinks that the…
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Israel Museum to Host Exhibition by Chinese Dissident Artist Ai Weiwei
Starting in June 2017, The Israel Museum will begin exhibiting the work of Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei. The exhibition, titled “Ai Weiwei: One and the Multitude” will feature four works by the artist, including “Sunflower Seeds,” (2010) a work comprising millions of handcrafted and hand-painted porcelain sunflower seeds that many have interpreted to be…
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70 Years Later, We’re Still Debating Jean-Paul Sartre and Anti-Semitism
Scholars from around the world convened in Jerusalem this week for a conference marking the 70th anniversary of the publication of Jean-Paul Sartre’s influential “Anti-Semite and Jew.” Originally published in French as ”Réflexions Sur la Question Juive” and translated widely, the book-length essay was written just after Paris was liberated in 1944. The English translation…
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Yes, Patti Smith Really Did Sing ‘Yentl’ at MoMA!
Singer and writer Patti Smith made a surprise appearance at MoMA on Sunday, December 18th, delighting visitors both tipped-off and caught unawares. As The New York Times’ Jonah Engel Bromwich reported, Smith’s performance, during which she read a selection of her poems and performed four songs, was her latest in a string of near-yearly tributes…
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Check Out 8 of the Greatest Jewish Christmas Albums of All Time
Eydie Gormé and the Trio Los Panchos — Navidad Means Christmas Steve Lawrence’s better half went south of the border for this festive 1966 collection of Spanish-language Christmas songs. David Grisman — Acoustic Christmas Folk/jazz mandolinist Grisman and his string band serve up swinging instrumental renditions of secular and traditional Christmas carols on this 1983…
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How an Okie Named Woody Guthrie Became Our Best Hanukkah Tunesmith
For 20 years, I was a pop music critic. Every year as the calendar wound down, here came one of music journalism’s over-roasted chestnuts: the annual roundup of new Christmas albums. I never groaned. I’m one of those Christmas music people. As soon as the Thanksgiving turkey is down my gullet, I’m trotting out the…
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Is America a More Ignorant Country Than Israel?
A week ago, Ipsos MORI, a market research company based in London, released their 2016 Index of Ignorance, which purportedly measures the level of ignorance in 40 countries from around the world. Ipsos MORI gathered their data from a survey taken by 27,250 people – between 500 and 1000 in each of the countries tested. The…
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How Klezmer Music Refutes Richard Wagner’s Myth of Racial Purity
The art world has always been a bastion of globalism, with artists constantly borrowing from one another to create new, previously inconceivable works. In our increasingly anti-globalist, anti-immigrant time, it is important to remember that many of the artistic works that we hold dear would not have been possible without centuries of cultural exchange. Few…
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Is Dr. Heimlich’s Maneuver All It Was Cracked Up To Be?
Dr. Henry Heimlich: Were his Maneuvers Beneficial or Misbegotten? Some doctors help humanity, although not always in the manner they intended. Dr. Henry Judah Heimlich, the American Jewish thoracic surgeon who died on Saturday, December 17, at age 96, entered popular culture through his much-publicized Heimlich Maneuver, or abdominal thrusts to stop choking. The lifesaving…
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Why David Friedman Is So Wrong To Call J Street Liberals ‘Kapos’
Donald Trump’s nominee for ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, has called Jews with left-leaning political views “far worse than kapos.” It’s a highly-charged word, to say the least, and discussion of Friedman’s word choice — kapoim in Hebrew — is blaring from the radio on Israeli buses. I heard a radio host explain Friedman’s use…
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