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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JSwipe Right: Fall in Love With the Revolutionary Founder David Yarus
While the founder of JSwipe (which is often dubbed the Jewish Tinder) describes himself as a “post-affiliation” Jew, he’s accomplished what scores of religious rabbis and traditional grandparents could only dream of doing: He’s matchmade hundreds of Jewish marriages and thousands of Jewish relationships. David Yarus, 30, and his three co-founders, working night and day…
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9 Surprising Jewish Things About Jesse Jackson For His 75th Birthday
The Reverend Jesse Jackson, two-time presidential candidate, peace negotiator and founder of the Rainbow Coalition and Operation PUSH, has had a long, complicated history with the Jewish community. On the occasion of his 75th birthday, we look back at some of the highlights and the lowlights of that relationship. 1) In 1974, Jackson appeared as…
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Is The Truth About Elena Ferrante In Her Name — Or Her Books?
This past Sunday, the Italian journalist Claudio Gatti published an investigation into the “true identity” of novelist Elena Ferrante in the New York Review of Books, as well as outlets in France, Italy, and Germany. Based on financial and real estate records, he concluded that Ferrante was actually a Rome-based translator whose Jewish mother survived…
The Latest
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3 Threats to a Healthy Climate of Criticism
The release of the first new Jonathan Safran Foer novel for over a decade highlights how book reviewing has changed since “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” appeared in 2005. In those days Facebook had barely launched, Google still did no evil and Apple wasn’t avoiding taxes on iPhones — since that device was yet to…
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How Bono Is Using the Words of a Jewish Poet To Denounce Donald Trump
The latest big name artist who’s taking issue with the candidacy of Donald Trump is Bono, leader of U2. The band has released “Liberty,” a video of a live performance that uses the song “Bullet the Blue Sky” to underscore a back-and-forth between Bono and a video of Trump proposing the erection of a wall…
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4 Jewish Poets For #NationalPoetryDay
If you asked why National Poetry Day was important, the great Jewish American poet Howard Nemerov would refer you – perhaps politely, perhaps not – to the world outside. In the brief poem “Because You Asked About the Line Between Prose and Poetry,” he positions his readers in a scene in which rain turns to…
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When Fox News Went From Chinatown to Boro Park in Search of More Stereotypes
After Jesse Watters’s triumphant trip to New York’s Chinatown, he headed south to Boro Park. Having spent time with people vaguely represented in the foreign policy discussion of the Vice Presidential candidates, he wanted to meet the Jews who have been the subjects of so many tweets by Donald Trump’s supporters. The segment hasn’t yet…
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Why Do So Many South American Jews Write About Oppression?
The Chilean-born Jewish poet Marjorie Agosín has written “Always From Somewhere Else: A Memoir of My Chilean Jewish Father”; “Memory, Oblivion, and Jewish Culture in Latin America”; and “Taking Root: Narratives of Jewish Women in Latin America,” among other books. After fleeing the dictatorship of President Augusto Pinochet in Chile with her parents in the…
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I’m Not a Jewish Doctor But I Play One on ‘Chicago Med’
Fans of “Chicago Med,” which debuted last year, may have noticed a slight discrepancy in its casting. The major-city trauma center did not have a single Jewish doctor on staff. Jewish moms everywhere were aghast. But, for season two, problem solved. “I never thought I’d play an orthodox Jewish man,” said Ato Essandoh, who’s played…
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Why Reading Is a Lot Like Sailing
Travels in Translation: Sea Tales at the Source of Jewish Fiction By Ken Frieden Syracuse University Press, 389 pages $29.95 For centuries, Jews dreamed of elaborate sea voyages. After the destruction of the Second Temple, in 70 C.E., and the ensuing exile, wandering became the norm, as did trade involving long distances. Pilgrimages to Israel…
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Will Bob Dylan, Jaan Kaplinski or Philip Roth Win the Nobel Prize This Year?
Some book lovers see the annual circus around the Nobel Prize in literature as mostly Swedish political meshugas, often not primarily about quality of writing. Others retain optimism about the award’s potential for spreading news about worthy honorees such as Imre Kertész (2002); Joseph Brodsky (1987); Elias Canetti (1981), and Isaac Bashevis Singer (1978). The…
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