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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“First Jewish Americans” Were Anxious About Intermarriage, Assimilation — Just Like Us
In 1742 Phila Levy-Franks, the daughter of a well-off family in New York’s growing Jewish community, secretly married the Huguenot Oliver de Lancey. Her mother, Abigail, who had immigrated to the United States from England in 1695, went into mourning and never spoke to her again. It might be harder, now, to find Jewish parents…
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How We Tracked Down the Best Yiddish Stories of the Past Century — and More
‘Jews say that if you change where you live you’ll change your luck, but is America really that different?” That’s the first line of an excerpt from Abraham Cahan’s “The Additional Soul,” a story that, translated to English from Yiddish by Jordan Kutzik, appears in the new anthology, “Have I Got a Story For You:…
The Latest
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How a Jewish Photographer Named Herman Leonard Redefined Jazz
Few people did more to establish jazz’s visual aesthetic than the American Jewish photographer Herman Leonard, who passed away in 2010. Leonard began photographing jazz musicians in the 1940s, often offering club owners and musicians free prints in exchange for access to rehearsal studios. His photographs appeared sporadically in issues of DownBeat and Metronome magazines,…
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The World’s Oldest Jewish Actor Dies at 101
The Russian Jewish actor Vladimir Zeldin, who died at age 101 on October 31, proved that if a performing career is long enough, it can stretch from one dictatorship to another. A mainstay of Moscow’s Red Army Theatre, now known as the Russian Army Theatre, Zeldin’s powerful presence and resonant voice filled this vast, crushingly…
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These Were 10 of the Greatest Artists on Jewish-Owned Chess Records Label
Chess Records, established in Chicago in 1950, was one of American music’s major institutions, helping to establish the hot, electric Chicago Blues sound and pioneer a new type of music known as Rock n’ Roll. Phil and Leonard Chess, brothers and co-founders of the label, were immigrants from a Jewish community in Częstochowa, Poland. After…
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Meet Harry Swimmer — CNN’s Jewish Nominee For Hero of the Year
When CNN announced the ten finalists for their tenth annual “CNN Heroes” special, 86-year-old Harry Swimmer was eating his weekend lox and bagels with family and friends, keeping his best poker face between bites. Swimmer knew he was among the finalists, but had signed a confidentiality agreement, and had even kept the news from his…
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How Blue Pajamas and a Magic Pizza Made a Miracle Happen for the Chicago Cubs
I awoke yesterday morning to find my brain shrouded by fog, echoes of bad decisions emanating from my stomach, and my mouth tasting like the circus had recently left town via my tongue. I staggered to the fridge for some water, and found a small, neatly saran-wrapped square of cheese pizza sitting upon the top…
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The Secret Jewish History of The Day of the Dead
Like Jerusalem, Athens and Rome, Mexico City is one of the great cities of the world. It is layer upon layer of different cultures. There are the majestic and inspiring layers of the Teotihuacan and Toltec peoples of 2800 and 1000 years ago respectively; the amazing ruins of Tenochtitlan of the Mexica (pronounced Meh-shi-ka) or…
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Meet 7 Orthodox Comics Who Are Making Comedy Kosher Again
Comedy isn’t kosher. Jewish law forbids Jews from voicing mockery, criticism and just plain negativity —precisely those elements that are part of almost all comic routines. But that’s just for starters. Ultra-Orthodox comics face a range of rules: no foul language, double entendres, or risqué allusions. If they’re performing for seriously Orthodox audiences, all comments…
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Getting Out of Gaza Was the Easy Part
I have never seen strangeness like this. In a quiet, upscale neighborhood of Jerusalem, my husband, Judah, and I were at an Israeli friend’s exhibit. Michal is a fashion designer. She is from a town in the north of Israel, the type of town with large suburban houses carved into hillsides blooming with fruit trees….
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Film & TV New Web Series Delves Deep Into Tel Aviv’s Hookup Scene
One might assume that a web series about internet hookups in Tel Aviv — the Middle East’s party capital — would be gratuitously sexual. But “Confess TLV” is more equivocal than erotic. Based on true stories of people who met online for sex, the eight-part series focuses on the emotional aspect of encounters that are…
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Culture Trump wants to honor Hannah Arendt in a ‘Garden of American Heroes.’ Is this a joke?
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Fast Forward The invitation said, ‘No Jews.’ The response from campus officials, at least, was real.
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Opinion A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on US soil. I think I know why no one objected.
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Fast Forward Columbia staff receive texts asking if they’re Jewish, as government hunts antisemitic harassment on campus
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News At Harvard, reports on antisemitism and anti-Palestinian bias reflect campus conflict over Israel
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Opinion Is JB Pritzker’s very Jewish toughness the key to fighting Trump?
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Fast Forward Trump nominee Ed Martin, who praised a Nazi sympathizer, also compared Biden to Hitler
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Opinion RFK Jr. and Trump are talking about an ‘autism registry’ — this sounds disturbingly familiar
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