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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The Secret Jewish History of the Academy Awards
As we all know, Jews control Hollywood, yeah, yeah, yeah, yadda, yadda, yadda. But that hasn’t stopped plenty of hosts and presenters at the Academy Awards over the years from poking fun at the notion, or from making the crowd and viewers uncomfortable with remarks bordering on the anti-Semitic. Fortunately, however, Mel Gibson hasn’t had…
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‘Yidlife Crisis’ Takes Off — With Assist From Mayim Bialik
Eli Batalion and Jamie Elman, the co-creators and stars of the online Yiddish-language sitcom “YidLife Crisis” have been on a roll in the past few months. The comedic duo was recently nominated for a Canadian Screen Award for best original digital media series and has taken their act on the road, performing a live version…
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‘Big Short’ Actor John Magaro Is Hiding in Plain Sight
John Magaro doesn’t usually celebrate his birthday. Despite the fact that he landed one of the lead roles in “The Big Short” playing Charlie Geller, a nerd with glasses who starts a hedge fund out of his garage in Colorado, he shies away from attention. On a recent Friday night though, still more than a…
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Forward Looking Back
1916 100 Years Ago New York City police detectives arrested one David Schiff, president of the Manhattan hat company Deutsch-Schiff, as well as his young cousin, Hyman Kuperstein of the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, on charges of setting fire to Schiff’s hat factory. Both are being held on $10,000 bail. Police say both Schiff and…
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7-Year-Old Boy Stumbles Onto 3,400-Year-Old Canaanite Relic
A seven-year-old boy on a trip with friends happened to move a rock while ambling around the Canaanite archaeological site of Tel Rehov in the Jordan Valley and found a beautifully preserved 3,400-year-old female figurine. Cleaning off the mud coating the clay sculpture, which is about the size of two adult fingers, Ori Greenhut found…
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Can a Revue of Jewish Show Tunes Save the World From Destruction?
Offstage, a production assistant unpacked plates of pickles and cold cuts from New York’s famed Katz’s Delicatessen. Onstage, a singer clad in sparkling, billowing pants and a bright pink hair bow adopted a cockney accent and belted out an unlikely Broadway rouser: “Who’s That Geezer Hitler?” On this Monday morning, holed up in a low-ceilinged…
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Cancellation of Israel Play Provokes Censorship Accusation
The National Coalition Against Censorship has sent out a letter criticizing the recent decision of the Michael-Ann Russell Jewish Community Center in Miami to cancel a production of Julia Pascal’s play “Crossing Jerusalem” in the middle of its run. The play follows an Israeli family during the second intifada in 2002, and was met with…
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Film & TV Israeli Films Star in an Otherwise Disappointing Berlin Festival
Despite the record-breaking admissions (over 330,000 tickets sold) for nearly 400 films from 76 different countries, the Berlin Film Festival, which ended Sunday, celebrated its dullest year in a decade. As expected, the Golden Bear went to the timely documentary “Fuocoammare” (“Fire at Sea”) by Gianfranco Rosi. Italy’s second win in four years, “Fuocoammare” would…
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Could You Eat More Bagels Than This Guy?
Inside an airy office above a strip of retail stores in downtown Huntington, New York, the first annual National Bagel Eating Contest made its debut on the first Sunday in February. The competition drew seven male contestants who were hungry to win the championship title and $500. Starting at 9 a.m., friends, family and several…
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Why Israel Is Paradise for Birds — and Birdwatchers
(JTA) — Thousands of cranes sit in pairs in a field here, their outlines approaching the horizon. Then, all at once, they take flight, a cloud of black-and-white feathers filling the sky. Shai Agmon isn’t interested in most of these. All he cares about is one pair near the front, slightly shorter than the rest. Most…
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Art Portraying Master Portraitist Annie Leibovitz
Annie Leibovitz is perhaps the best-known portrait photographer of our time. Her powerful and iconic images have graced the covers of magazines such as Rolling Stone, Vogue and Vanity Fair for over three decades. Several collections of Leibovitz’s work have been published, and exhibitions of her photographs have appeared in museums and galleries worldwide. A…
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