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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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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The Jewish Prayer for Healing Means More Than You Think
Maimonides said it plainly: “there is health and illness to the soul, just as there is health and illness for the body has health and gets sick.” (Shemoneh Perakim 3) And there’s a prayer for that. Generally recited when the Torah is in the process of being read and the congregation’s spirit is most intent,…
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Forward Looking Back
100 Years Ago Years ago, when we came over as immigrants and worked in factories, there was no such concept as corporate morality. Workers slept and ate in factories, which were sometimes dark, sometimes light — no one cared. People worked just to survive. Bit by bit, we developed specific industries and work became more…
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How Bill Graham Went From Jewish Refugee to Rock Impresario
Josh Perelman was away at summer camp in Wisconsin when the counselors made an unusual decision: They decided to let the campers watch television for one night, because Live Aid was on. The event, a massive global fundraiser for Ethiopian famine relief, unfolded on two stages in July 1985, in London and Philadelphia. Dozens of…
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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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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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