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
-
Film & TV
A Year for Women as Natalie Portman and Amy Winehouse Debut at Cannes
It’s official. After 67 years of presenting the best of testosterone-driven cinema from the world over, the Cannes Film Festival made the discovery that women too can direct. At least, that’s what I take it the New York Times’ Manohla Dargis meant when she irritatingly dubbed this the “Year of la Femme,” in reference to…
-
A Jewish Art Paradise at the Vatican
A Jew visiting Rome with the hope of finding some aspect of her heritage may be drawn to the synagogue on the banks of the Tiber River, or to wander through the ghetto, perhaps to sample carciofi alla Giudia, Jewish-style artichokes. She is unlikely to consider the Vatican to be a source of Jewish art….
-
Remembering the Glorious Jewish Humanity of Anne Meara
Anne Meara, who died on May 23 at age 85, was considerably more than one-half of the beloved comedy act Stiller and Meara. Born into a Roman Catholic family, she converted to Reform Judaism in 1961, as she told “People Magazine” in 1977, because she “wanted my children to know who they were.” Those children,…
The Latest
-
Who Should Replace Alan Gilbert at the New York Philharmonic?
Earlier this year, Alan Gilbert, music director of the New York Philharmonic, announced that he would step down from his job in 2017. With Avery Fisher Hall, the orchestra’s home, scheduled to close in 2019 for two years of renovation, fevered speculation has ensued about his successor. Music directors should quit more often, as such…
-
Why Satmar Hasidim Are More Liberal Than Liberals
In the past few years I’ve been spending much of my time outside of New York, but now I’m here and I find that coming back is a bit challenging. When I’m in town I’m oblivious to the changes happening around me. Yes, I have eyes and I can see the changes but more often…
-
Yiddish Sex Tips for Girls Find Home in Jerusalem Library
A few months ago, Dr. Yoel Finkelman was browsing through the catalog of the New York auction house Kestenbaum & Company; it’s a regular chore at the National Library’s collections department. He noticed an interesting item. Finkelman, the curator of the library’s Judaica collection, noticed a Yiddish pamphlet titled “Advice for Women and Young Women…
-
The Nakedness of the Bible
The Jews and the Bible By Jean-Christophe Attias, translated by Patrick Camiller Stanford University Press, 256 pages, $22.95 The greatest irony of the Bible is that it stands for the opposite of irony — certitude, transcendence, holiness — yet it is filled with nothing but irony. A truly bizarre anthology of contradictory texts is regarded…
-
Dream Home in Greenwich Village
Faye Ginsburg, 62, is a professor of anthropology at New York University in lower Manhattan. She is also the director of the Center for Media, Culture and History, co-director of the Council for the Study of Disability and president of the . Her husband, Fred Myers, 66, is also a professor of anthropology at NYU….
-
Of Starbucks, Courtney Love and 8 Other Things About (Jewish) Washington
1) 46,000 Jews live in Washington. 2) Edward Salomon became Washington’s only Jewish governor in 1870. 3) Elected in 1875, Bailey Gatzert became the first (and so far only) Jewish mayor of Seattle. 4) Washington’s first synagogue, Temple Emanu-El, was founded in Spokane in 1892. 5) Seattle’s Orthodox population is centered around the neighborhood of…
-
A New Arab Museum on the Periphery
“Our trip is canceled. The atmosphere in Sakhnin is very tense.” It was December 10, 2014, the night before I was due to visit the newly established Arab Museum of Contemporary Art, in Sakhnin, an Arab-Israeli city in the north of the country. I had received the phone call from the Haifa-based, Romanian-Israeli artist Belu-Simion…
-
Film & TV ‘The Farewell Party’ Shows the Lighter Side of Euthanasia
At the beginning of “Annie Hall,” Woody Allen tells a joke about two old ladies vacationing at a Catskills resort: “Boy, the food at this place is really terrible,” says one. “Yeah, I know,” says the other, “and such small portions.” “Well that’s how I feel about life,” Allen continues. “Full of loneliness and misery…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
Opinion A Reichstag fire is blazing in Trump’s America and we know exactly who is fanning the flames
- 2
Culture Is Netflix’s new show the most Jewish cartoon ever?
- 3
Fast Forward Minneapolis school shooting suspect had Tree of Life shooter’s name and antisemitic messages on his guns, videos show
- 4
Opinion Trump’s attacks on the Smithsonian come straight from the Nazi playbook
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward ‘Be a human being about this’: Ritchie Torres, Adam Friedland and a sensational confrontation over the Israel-Hamas War
-
Fast Forward Former Biden officials are speaking out about what happened behind the scenes on Israel
-
Fast Forward Yosef Blau, author of an Orthodox rabbis’ letter calling out Israel, responds to his critics
-
Yiddish ווי ייִדישע קינדער־ליטעראַטור האָט געזאָלט העלפֿן קינדער פֿאַרשטיין די וועלטHow Yiddish children’s literature aimed to help kids make sense of the world
די אַמאָליקע קינדערביכער האָבן אָפּגעשפּיגלט כּלערליי פּאָליטישע וויזיעס און אויך אַ נײַעם פֿאַרשטאַנד פֿון קינדער און משפּחה־לעבן.
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
