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
-
6 Things About ‘Babylon Line’ Playwright Richard Greenberg
Tony Award-winning author Richard Greenberg’s new play “The Babylon Line” opened at Lincoln Center on December 5. He recently sat down with the Forward for a lengthy, freewheeling interview. Here are 6 things we talked about. On Aroldis Chapman First of all, he shot up his garage before the Yankees acquired him. So, when we…
-
Sure, Bob Dylan Is a Great Artist — but Have You Looked at His Art?
Since Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize in literature in October, his name has not been out of the news. So the timing for the singer-songwriter’s major exhibition of new works at the Halcyon Gallery in Mayfair, central London, could not be better. But, says the gallery’s marketing manager, Ada Crawshay Jones, this is just…
-
How We Should Remember Kirk Douglas on His 100th Birthday
Kirk Douglas, who turns 100 on December 9, is both a movie legend and a Hollywood anomaly: a star divided. Most stars lodge in our collective consciousness. Douglas, while a first-magnitude star, was never quite an indelible one, save maybe for the dimple in his chin, never one who seemed to capture the zeitgeist the…
The Latest
-
Richard Greenberg Is Back on His Home Turf — Suburbia
The three women who shriek with excitement when they find themselves in the same classroom are thrilled to see each other — they’re Sisterhood ladies. It’s Levittown, Long Island, in 1967, and they’ve signed up for an adult-ed class in creative writing. It’s clear they don’t really want to be there, both because they tell…
-
Go Watch This Documentary About A Holocaust Survivor’s Violin
“Joe’s Violin” (2016), opens with a shot of the titular Joseph Feingold, tuning his violin. He hasn’t played in “8-10 years,” and his fingers look unsteady as he holds the instrument’s neck. After tinkering for a bit, Joseph puts down the violin and asks “how long can you live with memories?” Joseph, one of the…
-
Writers of ‘Vagina Monologues,’ ‘The Vibrator Play’ to Feature in D.C. Theater’s American History Cycle
Last week, Washington D.C.’s Arena Stage announced a significant new initiative: over the next decade, the theater will commission 25 plays by 25 writers, one for each decade of American history. Playwrights who have already signed on to the project include Eve Ensler, Sarah Ruhl and Aaron Posner. Fittingly, given that the theater is located…
-
Why We Shouldn’t Criticize Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize Snubs
Bob Dylan’s entire 54-year career can be read as one controversy following another. He started out as a traditional folkie who then betrayed tradition by writing his own songs. Then he betrayed the movement when he forsook topical and political protest songs for more personal, poetic musings. Then of course he shocked everyone by abandoning…
-
Bob Dylan Will Have Acceptance Speech at Nobel Prize Ceremony — He Just Won’t Be Reading it
In the latest installment of the Bob Dylan Nobel Prize Saga — which, we would note, gets less interesting as it gets more unnecessarily complex — the Nobel Foundation has announced Dylan is sending a speech to be read at the December 10 presentation of the Nobel Prizes in Stockholm. Like all Nobel laureates, Dylan…
-
Finally, a Judaica Exhibit That’s Actually Interesting!
Judaica, like all religious art, represents an aesthetic dilemma: Are these religious objects primarily objects of worship, or do they have an aesthetic value abstracted from any potential uses? Even if the answer is “both,” context is critical. Most Judaica exhibits that I have seen (exhibits at the Jewish Museum in Prague, or the Museo…
-
Remembering Leonard of Mayfair, Stylist for Stanley Kubrick and The Beatles
How much the styles of Swinging London in the sixties depended on the creativity of Jewish craftspeople remains to be fully appreciated. Leonard Lewis, the hairstylist known as Leonard of Mayfair, who died on November 30 at age 78, was part of the mix. Raised in the Shepherd’s Bush area of west London, Lewis explained…
-
Forward Looking Back
100 Years Ago Many of us remember what the elections were like on Manhattan’s Lower East Side two years ago, when Meyer London, socialist, Jew and immigrant, was elected to represent us in Congress. The men and women of the neighborhood stayed up all night awaiting the election returns, and cried with joy when it…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
Fast Forward Unarmed man who tackled Bondi Beach Hanukkah attacker identified as Ahmed al-Ahmed
- 2
Fast Forward First Puka Nacua, now Mookie Betts: Why do sports stars keep getting antisemitic around a Jewish streamer?
- 3
Fast Forward After MIT professor’s killing, Jewish influencers spread unverified antisemitism claim
- 4
Opinion I grew up believing Australia was the best place to be Jewish. This Hanukkah shooting forces a reckoning I do not want.
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Holocaust survivor event features a Rob Reiner video address — recorded just weeks before his death
-
Fast Forward In Reykjavik, Hanukkah offers a chance for Iceland’s tiny, isolated Jewish community to come together
-
Opinion When my children decorate for Hanukkah, I don’t just see pride. I see pluralism in action.
-
Fast Forward ‘The most Australian name’: Matilda, the youngest victim of the Bondi Beach attack, embodies a nation’s grief
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
