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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The towering Jewish critic who taught me to grok art and hate Picasso
After Max Kozloff died at 91, a New York community came together to remember and to mourn
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A Rabbi’s Daughter Grapples With the Commandment to Honor Her Father
Today I found out my father is dying. I know, I know—we are all dying, but in this case, the facts are more specific. Several weeks ago, my father was diagnosed with an advanced form of cancer and given six months to live—two years at most. I learned this information one spring afternoon when I…
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Why Only Jewish Boys Get To Keep Their Noses
How Come Boys Get To Keep Their Noses? By Tahneer Oksman Columbia University Press, 296 pages, $30 We seem to be living in a golden age of comic female abjection. Not long ago, the ethereal fantasy women that film critic Nathan Rabin famously dubbed “manic pixie dream girls” ruled the airwaves. These magical creatures continue…
The Latest
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5 (Jewish) Hairdos Bibi Could Have Had for Way Under $1,600
For $1,600, you can become the proud owner of an Apple laptop, a month’s lodging with three roommates and no windows in Manhattan or, if your name happens to be Benjamin Netanyahu, a fairly standard haircut. In light of the recent news about Netanyahu’s extravagant hair expenditures on his trip to New York, we thought…
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My Father’s Funeral
Growing up, there were days when my sister and I felt we were living in a madhouse. When our father was in a good mood, he was funny and kind, intelligent and learned; and the next moment, for no apparent reason, he screamed at us, and remained sullen for hours. We wanted to run away….
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How Jews Made London the Fashion Capital of the World
“Virtually every Jewish tailor was a showman,” reminisces Brian Bilgorri. His father, Harry (Sonny) Bilgorri, was owner of one of the most successful tailoring businesses in London’s East End, a contributor to the fashion revolution scene of the 1960s and one such showman. In Sonny’s obituary, in 2001, The Independent newspaper described Bigorri’s as, “a…
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Why Sephardic ‘Othello’ Is a Dream Come True
Beginning on June 16, the actor David Serero will portray the title role in Shakespeare’s “Othello,” presented by the American Sephardi Federation at the Center for Jewish History. We invited Serero to discuss the challenges of playing Othello in this production, which will feature Jewish Moroccan music. Othello is an actor’s dream role. I first…
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Meet the Man Who Taught Lin-Manuel Miranda All About Hamilton
In the opening song of “Hamilton,” the cast of early Americans that populates the musical repeatedly sings the title character’s name — Alexander Hamilton — their voices tinged with reverence. A similarly fascinated tone tends to emerge when people talk about Lin-Manuel Miranda, the 36-year-old composer, rapper, writer, and actor who created and stars in…
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Books Parenting How-To: Looking Beyond Diapers and Tantrums to Find Spirituality
Nurture the Wow: Finding Spirituality in the Frustration, Boredom, Tears, Poop, Desperation, Wonder, and Radical Amazement of Parenting Danya Ruttenberg Flatiron Books, 320 pages, $25 I’ve read my share of parenting books. There’s a stack by my bedside table that inevitably tips over with my three kids’ rambunctious play nearby. With a 3, 5, and…
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How a Jewish Con Man Tried To Get Herbert Hoover To Think in Yiddish
A few years ago, prompted by a stray comment from a visiting relative from Paris, I did a few Google searches on my great uncle with the unusual name: Freeman Bernstein. But it wasn’t until 2011 — when I was briefly between engagements in my four-decade career as a political columnist — that I took…
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Reading Delmore Schwartz, Our Responsibilities Begin
I came late to Delmore Schwartz. For most of my formative years as a reader, he was just a name, inspiration to my great culture hero Lou Reed, who dedicated “European Son,” on the first Velvet Underground record, to him. It wasn’t that “European Son” was a song I loved — the album has more…
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Music Did Allen Ginsberg Secretly Want To Be Bob Dylan?
Let’s start right from the beginning by getting this out of the way: Allen Ginsberg was no Bob Dylan. But Bob Dylan is no Allen Ginsberg, either. However, the funny thing is that the two of them, each top in his chosen field, seem to have had aspirations to be the other. Dylan’s man crush…
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