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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My Grandparents Thought They Were Leaving Us a Better World
I keep thinking of my maternal grandmother. She graduated from Wellesley in 1936, as did my paternal grandmother. Two Jewish women went to elite women’s colleges in the 1930s, my mom following in 1964. Both my aunts went there too. The first woman in my immediate family not to go to Wellesley, I broke the…
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How Donald Trump’s Election Made Me Ill — Literally
The night our country went to hell, I was alone. Well, not at first. I’d been watching the returns on my couch with a college friend, a gay first-generation American who teaches art history at an Ivy League university (in other words, a repulsive member of the coastal elite like most people I know). “I’m…
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Confessions of a Jew in a World of White Privilege
I’ve been white most of my life. About 99.7% of it. When I say I’ve been white I just mean I’ve enjoyed the perks of being a white man in America. Or not even enjoyed them. In fact, I wish I’d been aware of them enough to really savor those perks, but like most of…
The Latest
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Remembering Broadway Legend George S. Irving From the Original ‘Oklahoma’
The Tony-winning character actor George S. Irving, who died on December 26 at age 94, exemplified art that conceals art. Born George Irving Shelasky to a Russian Jewish immigrant family, he adopted a stage name redolent of success, following the example of the hit playwright George S. Kaufman. Apparently the last survivor of the original…
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Richard Adams Wrote Against Intolerance — For Jews, and Everyone Else
After one of their number predicts the destruction of their home, a group of brave individuals sets out in search of a new safehaven. On their way, they escape dystopian societies — one reminiscent of Ursula Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas,” in which the life of the many depends on the…
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My Memorable and Hilarious Hour With Carrie Fisher
Carrie Fisher was sitting in her publicist’s office munching on a candy bar, drinking soda and taking on one visiting journalist after another. Each of these activities was potentially dangerous to her health, but that’s what life is like on the road when you’re promoting a new novel. It was a dozen years ago, and…
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How a Fake News Story About a Fleeing Jewish Family Spun Out of Control
In the wake of the November election, the discussion of “fake news” has taken an outsized role in our political discourse, with both the political Left and Right misusing and abusing the term. There is one instance of “fake news” hysteria that I think is particularly telling, but before we get to that, a little…
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Carrie Fisher Wasn’t Just a ‘Star Wars’ Icon — She Was an Author and Advocate, Too
In 1987, a Los Angeles Times photographer asked Carrie Fisher if it would hurt her image to pose on a bar stool. The actress and writer wasn’t concerned. “There is not one area of sensationalism that I have not wandered into and trespassed wildly,” she told reporter Nikki Finke. Fisher, who passed away this morning…
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Holocaust Denial Article No Longer in Google’s Top Search Results
Two weeks ago, the Guardian reported that the top Google search result for “Did the Holocaust happen?” was an article on the neo-Nazi website Stormfront titled “Top 10 reasons why the Holocaust didn’t happen.” The story was picked up by numerous outlets and drew widespread anger (at least from everyone who isn’t a Nazi). When…
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Why the Dreyfus Affair Is Suddenly Trending in Israel — for All the Wrong Reasons
Log into Twitter in Israel and you’ll see “Dreyfus” trending. The reason is Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s choice of words in his response to France’s effort to host an international conference on Middle East peace in January. “This is a modern version of the Dreyfus trial,” Lieberman said, referring to the infamous case of Alfred…
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How Intermarriage Sparked Some of Einstein’s Greatest Discoveries
Albert Einstein is remembered as one of modernity’s (and Judaism’s) great geniuses. But, according to a recent article from Scientific American, many of Einstein’s most influential works were not the products of his individual genius, but rather born from intellectual collaborations with his first wife, Mileva Marić. The article (and the letters and biographies discussed…
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