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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Why Donald Trump Makes Life So Difficult For His Translators
Translators are the ultimate close readers — they consider every word, every comma, and every layer of nuance. For months, “translator Twitter” has included comments from translators around the world on the difficulty of doing “Trumpslation.” One classic question translators asked each other: how to translate “Make America Great Again” into Spanish? The Spanish newspaper…
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A Yiddish Theater Boom, and More of The Forward Looking Back
100 Years Ago There are currently 18 Yiddish theaters in America, and all of them are doing a bang-up business. This is in addition to the numerous Yiddish theater companies that are traveling around the country, performing in many different cities. There are five theaters in New York: Kessler’s, Shevski’s, People’s, Gabel’s and the Grand…
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How Art Spiegelman Is Paying Tribute to One of His Heroes
Si Lewen’s Parade: An Artist’s Odyssey Edited by Art Spiegelman Abrams Books, 148 pages, $40 It turns out that even cultural icons like taking pictures with their personal heroes, which is why when I visited Art Spiegelman at his Manhattan studio one damp morning early in January, the two of us spent 10 minutes trying…
The Latest
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What Does Trump’s Choice of Bibles Tell Us About Him?
President-elect Donald Trump has announced that he will be sworn in using both Lincoln’s Bible and his own family Bible, given to him by his mother. The Constitution doesn’t require that a Bible be used at all. The Bible aspect of the inauguration is all about symbolism, not law. Barack Obama chose Lincoln’s Bible for…
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If Trump Eliminates The National Endowment For the Arts, Artists Will Suffer — And So Will the Public
The march towards President-elect Donald J. Trump’s inauguration has been a slow one, each day bringing a new outburst, a new incompetent cabinet pick, or a new rambling interview. Today, the terrible, unsurprising news is that Trump intends to eliminate funding for both the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for the…
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Before Trump’s Inauguration, Theaters Across The Country Cast a Light of Solidarity
In the months since the election of Donald J. Trump, there’s been a proliferation of organizations working towards creative, peaceful resistance. Those include the Women’s March on Washington, which has spawned over 600 marches happening worldwide, Françoise Mouly and Nadja Spiegelman’s graphic tabloid of resistance-themed art titled, well, “RESIST!,” and The Ghostlight Project. The last…
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In Odessa, Everyone Has a Jewish History — And They’re Not Keeping it Secret Anymore
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. Once, Odessa was very much a Jewish city. Before World War II, a third of those living in the Ukrainian port city were Jewish. According to the latest census, the Jewish population today is roughly 1%. And yet, during a recent trip to Ukraine, I was surprised…
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Can the Simple Act of Writing Bring Muslims and Jews Closer Together?
I am a longtime believer in the power of writing by hand, but it took a museum exhibit in a converted mosque in Beersheba, Israel, to teach me that the bridge among Chinese culture, the Islamic world and Western civilization was made of paper. Two thousand years ago, paper was invented in China, and it…
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Why Jazz Fans Are Mourning the Closing of a Chicago Hardware Store
Earlier today, the website dnainfo reported some sad news out of Chicago – the closing of Meyer’s Ace Hardware. Why should we care about the closure of a hardware store in Chicago’s sprawling south side area (aside from the obvious sadness of yet another small business shutting down)? Well, Meyer’s Ace Hardware is one of…
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Jewish Architect Richard Neutra’s Home Named as One of 24 New National Historic Landmarks
Last week, the U.S. Department of the Interior announced 24 new National Historic Landmarks. The newly designated sites, which include landmarks ranging from a 12th-century village site in Iowa to the site of the Kent State Massacre, “depict different threads of the American story that have been told through activism, architecture, music and religious observance,”…
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In France, a Vexing Dilemma: Collaborate or Resist?
Les Parisiennes: How the Women of Paris Lived, Loved, and Died under Nazi Occupation By Anne Sebba St. Martin’s Press, 457 pages, $27.99 The perspective of time and new primary sources are chipping away at myths about resistance and collaboration under Nazi rule. Last year, for instance, the French response to defeat and occupation was…
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