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 Did Japan Treat Jews Differently During World War II?
During World War II, why did the Japanese refuse orders from Nazi Germany, its wartime ally, to kill all the Jews within its borders? A new book from Academic Studies Press, “Under the Shadow of the Rising Sun: Japan and the Jews during the Holocaust Era” addresses this question. Its author, Dr. Meron Medzini, former…
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Long, Long Ago in a Jewish Fantasyland Far, Far Away
The Book of Esther By Emily Barton Tim Duggan Books, 432 Pages, $27 The medieval kingdom of Khazaria has long been used as a Jewish Zembla, or fantasyland, a shadowy alternative to unpleasant realities. In the 12th century, the Spanish philosopher Judah Halevi dreamed up a Khazar king who converted to Judaism, imagining an upside-down…
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6 Films To Watch At The New York Jewish Film Festival
On January 11th, in partnership with the Jewish Museum and the Film Society of Lincoln Center, the Jewish Film Festival will return for its 26th edition. The festival offers a varied look at the world of Jewish film, both in terms of genre and time period. In addition to the newer films that make up…
The Latest
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Renowned Sociologist Zygmunt Bauman Heard Echoes of World War II in Trump
Polish-born Jewish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman has died in his home in England at age 91, the Washington Post reported today. Bauman lived in England since 1971 after he was driven out of Poland by a purge engineered by the communist Polish secret police. Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Leeds, Bauman was one…
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What I Learned From a ‘Stiff-Necked Jewish Atheist’ Like Nat Hentoff
Reading Nat Hentoff in the 1970s in the Village Voice and elsewhere, as I did, helped clue me into an essential truth: that a writer needn’t specialize in one area to the exclusion of all else. In Hentoff’s case – which was particularly inspiring to me as a budding music critic who was also obsessed…
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‘Night,’ Elie Wiesel’s Masterpiece, To Receive Star-Studded Live Reading
“If in my lifetime I was to write only one book, this would be the one,” Elie Wiesel wrote in a preface to his wife Marion’s 2012 translation of his Holocaust memoir “Night.” Now, six months after his death, New York’s Museum of Jewish Heritage and the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene will pay tribute to…
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Art The Art World Responds To Trump’s Inauguration With A Call For Strikes
If, on January 20th, you intended to drown out the second rate fanfare of Trump’s inauguration ceremony by getting some culture of a different kind, well, you may be in trouble. The New York Times reported on Sunday that a number of prominent artists and critics have signed a statement in support of a general…
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FOUND: Hannah Arendt’s Library Card
Hannah Arendt’s library card was recently found in the French national library’s archives, along with the library cards of writers Stefan Zweig and Marguerite Yourcenar. The treasure trove of library cards includes period photographs, home addresses, signatures, and most tantalizingly, listed professions. Zweig, for instance, identified himself as a “homme des lettres” or man of…
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6 Jewish Historians Tell Us What To Expect in 2017 — and Beyond
As a group, historians have not stayed silent during the rise of Donald Trump. In 2016, a group calling itself Historians Against Trump launched a website and released a statement (excerpt: “The lessons of history compel us to speak out against Trump”) that, by early November, had been co-signed by over 950 people. Meanwhile, documentarian…
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17 Surefire Pop Culture Predictions for 2017
A review of our pop culture predictions for 2016 reveals that exactly one was right: Woody Allen did produce a movie that concerned, at least partially, a sexually insecure middle-aged white man. (Here’s looking at you, “Café Society.”) We are sadly still waiting for Seth Rogen to produce “Jack Black’s Mikveh Spectacular.” Seriously, Seth, you…
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The Pleasures and Contradictions of Being Nat Hentoff
The writer and activist Nat Hentoff has died at 91, ‘surrounded by family and listening to Billie Holliday’s music,’ as his son put it on Twitter. Here’s a look back at the bearded, jazz-loving, proudly aetheistic, First Amendment advocate and columnist, written after the release a 2013 documentary about his life and career. The title…
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