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
-
Music and Pomegranates Merge at Greater Chicago Jewish Festival
In 1980 Skokie, Ill. lawyer Michael Lorge and about 20 of his friends were trying to create a positive Jewish community response for what they saw as an identity in trouble. Though Israel and Egypt had established diplomatic relations in January, only three months later five Palestinian Arabs from the Iraqi-backed Arab Liberation Front raided…
-
The Fate Sholem Aleichem Brought on Himself
Sholem Aleichem’s funeral was the largest New York City had ever seen. On May 15, 1916, more than 150,000 mourners accompanied the writer’s coffin from his home in the Bronx to the Ohab Tzedek synagogue in Harlem, down Fifth Avenue to the Lower East Side, and finally to the Mt. Nebo cemetery in Cyprus Hills,…
-
Forward Looking Back
Mazel Tov: Jean Dubinsky, daughter of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union President, marries Air Force veteran Shelley Appleton. The couple were married in the presence of their families at a ceremony performed by Dr. Israel Goldstein (above right), rabbi of congregation B’nai Jeshurun in New York. 1916 100 Years Ago According to columnist Moyshe…
The Latest
-
What Emma Goldman Has in Common — With Bernie Sanders
Emma Goldman (1869–1940), the Lithuanian Jewish anarchist, was widely known in America as Red Emma for her defense of free speech, labor protests, women’s rights and birth control. Although she was deported from the United States in 1919, starting in the 1970s increasing numbers of historians and readers have been drawn to Goldman’s personality and…
-
One Tenacious Family, Two Inspiring Rabbis
Cooking for Shabbat dinner, Michael and his daughter Ruth sound like any other father and daughter fortunate enough to spend time in the kitchen together. The conversation was punctuated with the gentle clinking of pots and pans, and Ruth’s occasional kind reminders not to let the salmon burn. But their casual and frank demeanor masks…
-
Montreal Is Finally Getting Its Very Own Jewish Museum
After six years of presenting online exhibitions and pop-up events, the Museum of Jewish Montreal is finally getting a permanent brick-and-mortar home. The museum, scheduled to open by the end of May, is located in the city’s Plateau neighborhood, in a circa 1912 building that once housed a garment factory — a remnant of the…
-
How I Fell in Love With Justice Louis Brandeis
At our last meeting before Nationals, as a symbol of good luck, Beth and Joe gave each of the five of us — Cora, Sarah, Will, Joseph and me — a small blue bear with “Colorado” embroidered on its chest. It was April 2009, and we were sitting in Joe’s offices in an airy old…
-
Film & TV When a Racist Hungary Politician Finds Out He’s Jewish
‘It almost reads like a gag,” Sam Blair said. “Have you heard about the fascist politician who found out he was a Jew?” Blair was talking about Csanád Szegedi, a former leader of Hungary’s extremist right-wing Jobbik party. Jobbik is widely, but not officially, associated with anti-Semitism; as an example, in the run-up to the…
-
Journey to a Land Where Jews Are Wax and Anti-Semitism Is Kitsch
Upon entering the restaurant that the charming concierge at the Hotel Grand Lodz had recommended, we froze. Not that I had imagined a deli or South Williamsburg hole-in-the-wall I always wonder if I have the right to wander into, but I was thoroughly unprepared for what awaited us. Outside, the font on the sign over…
-
How a Survivor’s Son Is Bringing Baseball to Israel
Baseball in Israel? Yes that most American of games is growing in popularity thanks to individuals like Peter Kurz. The son of a father who fought in the Russian army in World War II and a mother hidden during the Holocaust in her native Hungary, Kurz grew up in Manhattan and was drawn early-on to…
-
In Holocaust Novel, She Heard Echoes of Her Own Family
One morning last spring, a colleague of mine told me about a Hungarian novel she’d been sent to consider for publication. She loved what she had read, but wondered if it would be better suited for me. At its most satisfying, our work as book editors introduces us to stories that deepen our experience of…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
Exclusive Mahmoud Khalil wants to reassure you
- 2
Culture 70 years ago, this Jewish choreographer predicted our epidemic of loneliness and isolation
- 3
Opinion Trump is backed into a corner on Iran. Get ready for him to start blaming Jews
- 4
Culture The original anti-Zionists have been all but forgotten. Molly Crabapple wants to change that.
In Case You Missed It
-
Opinion Hungary is poised to topple an authoritarian leader. American Jews have something to learn
-
Fast Forward 42 Jewish authors slam Jewish Book Council for ‘bias toward centering Israeli and Zionist voices’
-
Fast Forward Temple Israel rabbi criticizes Michigan Senate candidate for ‘offensive’ remarks about attack
-
Culture The Pentagon fears the Vatican’s authority in a battle over Christianity’s power
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
