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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How Dylan Thomas Wrote My Favorite Jewish Christmas Story
We grew up Irish on Chicago’s northwest side. Or maybe Scottish. Possibly Welsh. Somewhere from that general part of the world, anyway. My mother has always been fond of Irish names — she would’ve named me Shawn, she said, if she hadn’t named me after her father, Abe, an inventor with fiery red hair; whenever…
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Why I Still Celebrate Christmas Without Guilt
During the month of December, back when I was 12 and studying for my bat mitzvah, my mom and I would scour the house each Saturday morning before my tutor arrived, in order to locate and hide evidence of Christmas. We had ample time before 1 p.m., but we waited until the last minute to…
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The 7 Most Famous Uses of ‘Schlong’ Before Donald Trump
Donald Trump’s use of the term “schlonged” may have been the most recent example of a Yiddish curse hitting the mainstream. But it’s hardly the first. In fact, the term schlong has been swinging around pop culture for quite a while. Here are seven of the most noteworthy uses of the (rather unpleasant) term: 1969…
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Film & TV How ‘Star Wars’ Became America’s Talmud [SPOILER ALERT!]
Please don’t read this article if you haven’t seen Star Wars yet — it’s one big spoiler. But whether you have seen it, plan to see it, or couldn’t care less, in fact this article is about… you. “The Force Awakens” is a Talmudic film, struggling with what critic Harold Bloom has called the anxiety…
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What Hasidic Jews Do — and Don’t Do — on Christmas Eve
(JTA) — Christmas is a day like any other in most Hasidic neighborhoods in New York: Children go to school, shops are open, and tinsel and holly are nowhere to be seen. But Christmas Eve occupies a special place on the Hasidic calendar as a kind of “silent night,” when beit midrash study halls fall…
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Don’t Mess (Too Much) With Tradition: Updated ‘Fiddler’ a Triumph
The thing about traditions is that in order to thrive they sometimes need to change — just enough, and in the right ways. Even Tevye the milkman, musical theater’s great advocate for tradition, knows this. Oh, sure, he’ll raise a fuss when his traditional ways are questioned, but, on the other hand, he’ll come around…
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Why Fiddler on the Roof Is the Opposite of a Jewish Musical
In “Changing Places,” a terrific academic novel by David Lodge, a professor and his colleagues play a literary parlor game called “Humiliation.” In the game, the players attempt to one-up each other in admissions of ignorance by confessing the most inexcusable examples of books they haven’t read. When Professor Howard Ringbaum admits he never read…
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How To Spot a Neo-Nazi in Germany
‘Is this him?” my boyfriend, Jan, asked skeptically, showing me a photograph of a soft-faced man smiling angelically against a background of timber roofs and spires. We were lying in bed on a Sunday in my Kreuzberg apartment, too lazy and comfortable to head out into the bracing Berlin cold, and having just learned that…
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Are All Men Still Jews?
Reflecting on 2015, I was reminded of Bernard Malamud’s quote, “All men are Jews except they don’t know it.” Malamud later clarified that he was talking about “how history treats all men,” which is to say, badly. It is a deeply empathic observation, as it understands that suffering and humiliation are inextricably bound into the…
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How We Tell Holocaust Stories Without Survivors
We’ve reached a pivotal cultural moment in Holocaust historiography and memoir, poised between the final thoughts of the last survivors and the attempts of their children — and, more recently, their grandchildren — to make sense of their legacy. It’s a phenomenon with an equivalent in Germany, where the so-called Third Generation has been reckoning…
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Friday The Rabbi Solved Crimes
Looking for a rabbi? Someone who’s accommodating but firm? Quick on his or her feet and scholarly, too? Capable of holding his or her own at both interfaith gatherings and synagogue board meetings? Familiar with the Talmud as well as with the most current literature? As it happens, I have the perfect candidate for you:…
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