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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What’s Behind the Boom in Orthodox Women Singers?
‘My singing is not an act of rebellion. It’s what I’m meant to do,” said Perl Wolfe, lead singer of the now defunct Hasidic rock band Bulletproof Stockings. “The rebbe said, ‘You’re supposed to take your God-given talents and use them for the betterment of human kind.’ I’m creating a space for women to have…
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How Judaism Still Brings My Father Closer to Me
Shortly after my mother left him, my father started going to synagogue regularly for the first time in his life. He would bring 7-year-old me with him on Friday nights as the official start to our weekends together, usually followed by banana splits at Baskin-Robbins. He’d been untethered before, living in an abandoned factory in…
The Latest
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At the New Museum, We’re All Collectors — Especially the Museum Itself
There’s much to be learned from the name of the New Museum’s new exhibit “The Keeper.” The show is in fact an assemblage of the efforts of numerous keepers, artists who have collected, arranged, stored and displayed objects in unusual ways. It makes the singular title a bit of an odd fit. Is the exhibit…
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This May Be the Last Chance To Tell The Story of These Survivors
Ari Rath met me at the door of his friend Saleh Turujman’s apartment. It was a brilliantly sunny Friday morning in Washington, D.C., but the men were tucked up inside this eighth-floor space with views overlooking the Jefferson Memorial. Images and artifacts of Jerusalem were on every flat surface, every wall, every shelf. Rath is…
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Why ‘Ben-Hur’ Is More Than Just Another Jesus Flick
It’s hard to make a new movie about Jesus. True, the Gospels are full of intrigue, betrayal and violence, rich material for cinematic adaptation. But film versions of the New Testament are plentiful. Between the products aimed straight at the Sunday School crowd, and the torture porn of Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ,”…
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In Levy’s Universe, Women Grapple With Their Inner Selves
One of the unexpected pleasures of recent years has been the second coming of the South African-born British novelist and playwright Deborah Levy, born in 1959. When her agents distributed “Swimming Home” — a psychological novel set in the French Riviera with engaged, intelligent women at its heart — for consideration at the end of…
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The Versailles of Asbury Park
On the mantelpiece of the Jersey Shore summer home of my dear longtime friends, Phyllis and Stanley Getzler, sits a small stone sculpture, its rough surface punctuated by streaks of black, white and a mustardy shade of yellow. When I first laid eyes on it, I assumed it was a contemporary artwork, one of many…
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Arthur Hiller Directed ‘Love Story’ and ‘The In-Laws’ and Never Lost His Yiddishkeit
Best remembered for his hit film “Love Story,” (1970), the Canadian Jewish director Arthur Hiller’s highest achievement may have been remaining a mensch during the vertiginous ups and downs of a long Hollywood career. Hiller, who died on August 17 at age 92, attributed his trademark gentle calm to his parents, Rose Garfin and Harry…
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Books Amy Schumer Gets Trolled By Redditors, Sells Thousands of Books Anyway
A small army of Redditors has been steadily trying to destroy the Amazon ratings of Amy Schumer’s new book of essays, “The Girl With The Lower Back Tattoo”, reported TheWeek.com. Devotees of “Opie and Anthony,” a now-defunct radio show known for its racist host (who was also arrested for allegedly strangling a woman), plotted to…
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Books 9 Books Bret Stephens Should Read Before Saying Arabs Have a ‘Stunted Literary Culture’
Writing this week in The Wall Street Journal, columnist Bret Stephens had some strange things to say about Arab-majority countries. From an Egyptian’s refusal to shake hands with an Israeli after their Olympics judo match, the one-time editor of The Jerusalem Post extrapolates all of recent politics and history across 22 countries. He makes reference…
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NYC Fringe Play Tells Stories of Biblical Women — But Where Are the Jews?
“The Bible Women’s Project,” playing in Manhattan through August 24th as part of NYC Fringe, is a brave piece of theater. Coming from Eastern Nazarene College, a non-denominational Christian liberal arts college outside of Boston, the production grew out of a simple but daunting task: have a group of women read all the stories of…
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