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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Rachel Weisz Has a Thing or Two To Say About ‘Denial’
The British actress Rachel Weisz plays historian Deborah Lipstadt in the new film “Denial.” The film resonates with the actress’s own life: Weisz’s father is Jewish; her mother became a Jew, and both fled the Nazis. Weisz met with the Forward’s Jane Eisner recently to talk about the film, her visit to Auschwitz and what…
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How Our Legal Team Won the Case Against Holocaust Denial
The libel case brought against Deborah Lipstadt in London by the Holocaust denier David Irving came to trial in 2000. I was one of Lipstadt’s attorneys, and 2000 feels like longer than 16 years ago. A world pre-9/11, before the ubiquity of social media and, for Jews, predating the emergence of much debated new forms…
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Bruce Springsteen’s Jewish Neighbors — and Other Highlights of The Boss’s Autobiography
The first time Jews Bruce Springsteen mentions Jews in his impressionistic new autobiography “Born to Run,” he’s talking about the family who occupied the other half of a duplex his family moved into in 1966. More specifically, and perhaps not surprisingly, it has to do with the family’s two teenage daughters. “In the half we…
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Hollywood Makes Its Case Against ‘Denial’ — Will It Matter?
I first met the historian Deborah Lipstadt years ago, when I was a foreign correspondent based in London. She was visiting the city, and a mutual friend suggested that she get in touch with me. I remember a spirited dinner at our flat, and a walk through Regent’s Park. In the ensuing years, as she…
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The Dark Night of Louis CK
The CK of Louis CK stands for Székely — the family name that was passed down to him from his Hungarian Jewish forbears. But my connection to him is more significant than the shared religion of his Hungarian and my Lithuanian ancestors. He’s three years older than me with two daughters (11 and 14) each…
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Even 1,000 Years Ago, Jerusalem Was a Hotbed of Creativity and Conflict
Like the Metropolitan Museum itself, the new exhibit “Jerusalem, 1000-1400: Every People Under Heaven” is meant to be an oasis of sorts, a respite from whatever struggles and conflicts may be happening outside its doors. Or at least that’s the intention. In presenting 400 years worth of medieval art from Jerusalem, the exhibit’s curators Barbara…
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Why Josh Gondelman Is a Rising Star in Stand-Up Comedy
‘We’ll get your name right this time,” says the emcee at The Comic Strip in Manhattan. Josh Gondelman laughs. “Dude, zero problem at all.” He pulls the sleeves of his blue sweater further over his wrists, a smile slowly spreading across his face. “I’m the least uptight about that stuff.” “I know you are, I…
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These 3 Jewish Inventions Are Tailor-Made For Celebrating Rosh Hashanah
Written more than 1,000 years ago, one prayer lies in wait at the heart of every High Holiday service: U’ntane Tokef (translation: “We Give This Day Its Power”). It reads like the voiceover from a trailer for a new season of “Game of Thrones”: “On Rosh Hashanah it is written, on Yom Kippur it is…
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Meet Donald Trump’s $20,000 Jewish Speed Painter
The speed-painter and “performer,” Michael Israel, recently found a creation he made 10 years ago at the forefront of a political controversy, involving of course, none other than Donald Trump. Back in 2007, Trump and his wife Melania attended a charity hosted by HomeSafe, which helps homeless and abused children, at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s private estate…
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Can an Orthodox Jew See the World Through Palestinian Eyes?
Acclaimed Orthodox Jewish documentary filmmaker Menachem Daum is not one to shy away from controversy. In his newest film, “The Ruins of Lifta: Where the Holocaust and Nakba Meet,” which he produced with longtime collaborator Oren Rudavsky, he explores his personal feelings, as a child of Holocaust survivors, towards the Palestinians. Daum is best known…
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The Transparent Jewish History of Jeffrey Tambor
‘There’s Lear or there’s Maura,” Jeffrey Tambor told me. “I chose Maura.” Maura is Maura (née Mort) Pfefferman, at the center of the Amazon Prime streaming series “Transparent.” In her late 60s, she reintroduces herself as transgender to her estranged wife and children — each of whom, to use a show business expression, has his…
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