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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Was Francois Mitterrand an Anti-Semite? It’s Complicated.
Was François Mitterrand, who served as President of France from 1981 to 1995, anti-Semitic? October 26 marks Mitterrand’s centenary but already earlier this year on a Gallic TV chat show, Prime Minister Manuel Valls reopened the debate by citing Mitterrand as an example of anti-Semitism in France. Authoritative biographies by historian Michel Winock and journalist…
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Why This Literary Translator Will Do Yiddish — but Not Haruki Murakami
I once heard a woman in cat’s-eye glasses say that she likes to look at a large map on her wall, which has pins affixed to the countries from which she has published literature in translation. But what haunts her, she passionately explained, are the empty spaces on the map — the countries with no…
The Latest
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Books You’ll Never Guess Which Israeli Authors President Obama Loves
We’ve always known President Obama is, at heart, a lovable nerd. Soon we’ll get even more proof; the president guest-edited the November edition of WIRED, which the magazine’s editor in chief Scott Dadich recently wrote will be focused on frontiers, including “the final one, because it turns out President Obama is a big Star Trek…
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Takin’ The A Train to the Forgotten ‘Jews of Harlem’
THE JEWS OF HARLEM: THE RISE, DECLINE, AND REVIVAL OF A JEWISH COMMUNITY By Jeffrey S. Gurock NYU Press, 320 pages, $35 There was once an area in Manhattan where few Jews — and almost no whites — settled, that area beneath Morningside Heights, past Central Park, above 96th Street on the East Side: Harlem….
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Music Songwriter Carole Bayer Sager Feels a Connection to God
There’s a story in Carole Bayer Sager’s just-published memoir, “They’re Playing Our Song,” about the day she met Marvin Hamlisch. They were supposed to discuss writing the score for a TV pilot. The meeting was short; Hamlisch told her he had to leave for London to start scoring the new James Bond movie, “The Spy…
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The Secret Jewish History of Shirley Jackson and ‘The Lottery’
The centenary of Shirley Jackson (1916 –1965), noted for her horror stories such as “The Lottery” (1948), and the novel “The Haunting of Hill House” (1959), will be celebrated in December. New publications and reprints commemorate this writer who has chilled millions. Claimed by Stephen King, among others, as a major influence, Jackson was married…
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Film & TV Have Mediocre Movies Like ‘American Pastoral’ Hurt Philip Roth’s Chances For a Nobel Prize?
If there’s one moment that bugs Philip Roth more than any in “American Pastoral,” the new film adaptation of his explosive Pulitzer Prize-winning 1997 novel, I’m guessing it’s this one: During an overwrought scene of domestic conflict between Newark’s one-time golden boy Swede Levov and his bilious, radical teenage daughter Merry, the camera lingers on…
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Where Kabbalah and Mad Magazine Meet, Mark Podwal Is the Product
Dr. Mark Podwal is a Jewish artist. That is to say his art is his homeland and Judaism is the language of his country. Like body and soul they are intertwined. For many years he has been my friend and my family has used the Haggadah he illustrated with Elie Wiesel in 1993. He began…
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Books Catskills Bookstore Sparks Protests by Comparing Donald Trump to Nazis
— An upstate New York bookstore display containing the name “Trump” superimposed over a Nazi flag has spurred outrage, including from the Anti-Defamation League and supporters of the Republican nominee. Some 20 protesters demonstrated Wednesday outside the Inquiring Minds Bookstore and Cafe in the village of Saugerties against the banner, which also read “Make America Hate Again.” Some demonstrators…
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Our Favorite GIF’s From the New National Archives Collection — Featuring Bugs Bunny and Albert Einstein
The U.S. National Archives has launched its own GIF channel. Among the highlights of the 167 GIF’s, which have been discussed by Open Culture and Hyperallergic include rare footage of Woodsy Owl and a performing squirrel, along with a number of items that we found particularly interesting: Here’s one of Albert Einstein: Here’s the swastika…
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The Secret Jewish History of the Rocky Horror Picture Show
“Rocky Horror” is the cultural phenomenon that simply refuses to die. Rather, since its first incarnation as a 1973 stage musical in London, “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” has been continuously reborn on the silver screen, in subsequent Broadway stage productions, and now, as a 21st-century direct-to-TV film. “The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let’s Do…
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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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