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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Music
Who Knew Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Son Is Revolutionizing World Music?
Jewish roots are emerging in contemporary music from remarkably diverse performers who are often not Jewish. Beyond the intriguing klezmer revival, there’s a steadily growing movement of typically classically trained musicians who are discovering mostly European Jewish music as a base for alchemical combinations of past and present. When classical guitarist Denis Azabagic, originally from…
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The Way Barbra Streisand Was — and How She Got That Way
Barbra Streisand: Redefining Beauty, Femininity, and Power By Neal Gabler Yale University Press, 296 pages, $25 Barbra Streisand was born poor in Brooklyn. Her father died when she was a toddler; her mother was terrible to her, and her stepfather was worse. She was gawky, unpopular and unattractive. But she was determined, and she had…
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Art Remembering The Transcendent Meditations Of Eva Hesse
Only late in “Eva Hesse,” the new documentary about Eva Hesse’s art and her life, do we actually hear the artist’s voice. Part of an interview she gave to the art historian and writer Cindy Nemser, the audio recording is poignant, even haunting, given that by the time the transcript of the interview appeared as…
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Forward Looking Back
1916 100 Years Ago American Jews are terribly upset over the death last week of the writer Sholem Aleichem. Those who live nearby mobbed his home in the Bronx to see the body of their most beloved writer. People arrived from as far away as Philadelphia, Boston and Toronto to pay their respects. From early…
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What If the Nazis Won — or If They Lost?
In October 2015, The New York Times Magazine conducted a poll on Twitter, asking its readers, “Could you kill a baby Hitler?” The question unleashed a flood of think pieces parsing the ethics of such an act, and a response from then-Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush, who said without hesitation, “Hell, yeah, I would.” Ultimately,…
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How Morley Safer’s Jewish Upbringing Inspired His Quest for Decency and Justice
The Canadian Jewish broadcast journalist Morley Safer, who died at age 84 on May 19, was as much preoccupied with ethics and the arts as reporting during his more than a half-century with CBS News, 46 of them with the program “60 Minutes.” He told Abigail Pogrebin, author of “Stars of David: Prominent Jews Talk…
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Why in the World Did Anthony Let Them Film ‘Weiner!’
In the movie “Weiner,” former U.S. congressman Anthony Weiner displays the proper reluctance that’s supposed to mark the beginning of a hero’s journey. “This is the worst,” he says into the camera in the opening shot of the film. “I don’t know why I let them film me,” he tells a voter from atop a…
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Meet New York’s Torah Truck King
I found Rabbi Shulem Korn in Queens as he was assembling one of his famous Torah Trucks. A white pickup was hooked to an ornately decorated trailer, a dramatic scene of Mount Sinai, surrounded by lightening, emblazoned on the side. I’d been trying to track down the rabbi for months, celebrated in New York for…
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Why Interviewing Sandy Koufax Made This Writer More Nervous Than Ever Before
Sportswriter Jeff Passan is long past the stage in his career when he feels anxious at the prospect of interviewing a famous athlete. But Sandy Koufax was different. It was a bucket list moment for Passan, the lead baseball writer for Yahoo Sports. A part of him felt as if he was back in Hebrew…
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Finding Beauty in ‘Indecent’ — a 110-Year-Old Play Set in Jewish Brothel
Indecent By Paula Vogel Created by Paula Vogel & Rebecca Taichman Directed by Rebecca Taichman Music composed by Lisa Gutkin & Aaron Halva From the moment of its inception in 1906, Yiddish writer Sholem Asch’s play “God of Vengeance” was an object of controversy. Set in a Jewish brothel, the plot revolves around a love…
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Film & TV Last Surviving ‘Casablanca’ Actor Dies — Along With a Slice of Jewish History
When Madeleine Lebeau, the last surviving actress from the film “Casablanca” (1942) died earlier this month at age 92, she took with her more than film history. Her screen role as Yvonne, Humphrey Bogart’s discarded mistress, was twinned with her real-life role as the wife of French Jewish actor Marcel Dalio (1899–1983). Dalio was born…
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