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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New Jewish Literary Journal Pays Tribute to Vilna Ghetto Heroes
The first volume of the Jewish Book Council’s new annual literary journal, Paper Brigade, isn’t exactly subtle in its messaging: its cover, designed by Katherine Messenger, features sketches of an attractive set of bookish people utterly lost in Jewish literature. They seem to occupy a bubble of calmness. One woman sits absorbed in Anita Diamant’s…
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Meet Rachel Chavkin, Director of Broadway Smash ‘The Comet’
The shining shifting spectacle “Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812,” is playing at the aptly titled Imperial Theater starring Josh Groban and directed by Rachel Chavkin. “The Comet” (as it is colloquially known), by Dave Malloy, is one of the most exciting electro rock operas to hit Broadway in recent years. Based on…
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Why Michael Chabon’s New Novel Made Me Gasp
Michael Chabon’s new novel, “Moonglow,” initially presents itself as a fairly straightforward memoir. And yet complications abound from the get-go, as one might expect from a writer who has done more than most to complicate what genre works can do and be and how they might be critically received. (An author’s note also suggests that…
The Latest
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‘Mozart in the Jungle,’ An Italian Jewish Celebration, and 5 Other Things to Watch, Read, and Do This Weekend
Hanukkah is coming, which means, for many, some serious winter nesting. Before you huddle up for the holiday, partake in some of the last best moments of Jewish culture in 2016. 1) Binge on theater, new and old This week and next herald the openings of Tony Award-winning playwright Richard Greenberg’s new play “The Babylon…
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How Does A Jew Follow Texas’s New Abortion Law?
Last week, Texas approved a new law that will require abortion providers to either bury or cremate and scatter fetal remains. The law, proposed in July at the behest of Governor Greg Abbott, will change the longstanding medical practice of disposing of fetal remains in a sanitary landfill along with other biological waste. The rule,…
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Martin Amis Announces New ‘Autobiographical Novel’ Featuring Saul Bellow & Christopher Hitchens
Author Martin Amis, perhaps best known for his (in)famous Holocaust novel, “Time’s Arrow,” announced in a recent interview with livemint.com that he is working on an autobiographical novel that he has “been trying to write for 15 years.” Despite calling the novel autobiographical, Amis stated that the book will be less about him than about…
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On Cult German Show, Real Rabbi Officiates TV Bar Mitzvah
If you walk through a German-speaking town next Sunday night, the odds are that the streets will literally be empty as people stay at home to watch a bar mitzvah on TV. For Germans and Austrians like me, “Tatort” (“Crime Scene”) is the holy grail of television. It’s the German equivalent of “Game of Thrones,”…
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Rachel Kushner Wrote About Jerusalem Refugee Camp For NYT Mag — Here’s What Happened Behind the Scenes
Last week, novelist Rachel Kushner published an essay called “We Are Orphans Here: Life and death in East Jerusalem’s Palestinian refugee camp,” recounting her time in the Shuafat Refugee Camp, in The New York Times Magazine. The essay details Kushner’s experience in Shuafat with a local Palestinian community organizer named Baha Nababta as her guide….
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Books Is Alexander Portnoy White?
It’s struck me lately that the American writer perhaps most deeply associated with White Male Writer-ness is one who made his name writing fiction about identity. Google “Philip Roth” and “white male” and you find an endless stream of essays that offer up Roth as a prime example of the white male literary novelist. As…
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This 101-Year-Old’s Uncle Was the Strongest Jew in the World
Editor’s Note: On December 5, Martha Gold died at 101. As a tribute to her, we are re-publishing her interview with Laurie Gwen Shapiro about Martha’s uncle Max Rosenstock, who at one time was known as the strongest man in the world. When you get word there’s a 101-year-old who’s a historic witness to a…
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The Secret Jewish History of Jackie Kennedy
Now that Jackie Kennedy is being portrayed onscreen by the most famous Israeli-born actress in the world, it’s worth looking closely at the former first lady’s life to pick up the Jewish strands she left behind. 1) Although Jacqueline Bouvier boasted Anglo-Irish and French ancestry, that didn’t stop some from falsely claiming Jewish heritage for…
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Holy Ground A Jewish farmer broke ground on a synagogue in an Illinois cornfield. His neighbors showed up to help.
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Opinion I discovered anti-Zionism at the University of Michigan. I’m glad it lives on there
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Culture An Israeli genocide scholar looks to Israel’s history to understand ‘what went wrong’
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Opinion An alarming new battleground in campus fights over Israel
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Fast Forward DOGE’s cuts to Jewish humanities grants were unconstitutional, judge rules
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Fast Forward As anti-LGBTQ laws spread, these two Jewish nonprofits are funding moves to safer states