Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of Jewish culture. Here, you’ll learn about the latest (and sometimes earliest) in Jewish art, music, film, theater, books as well as the secret Jewish history of everything and everyone from The Rolling Stones to…
Culture
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Film & TV In ‘The Rehearsal’ season 2, is Nathan Fielder serious?
The comedian is out to solve an epidemic of airplane crashes — will the world listen?
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Of Touro Synagogue, Hasbro and 10 Other Things About Jewish Rhode Island
1) Eighteen thousand and five hundred Jews live in Rhode Island — about 1.75% of the state’s population. 2) The central courtyard at Providence’s Roger Williams National Memorial was donated in 1931 by Jerome Hahn, in memory of his father, Isaac Hahn, the first Jewish citizen to hold elected office in the city. 3) Newport’s…
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Does ‘Ida’ Misrepresent Poland’s Treatment of Jews?
Every year since 1963, Poland has submitted a movie for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Nine of the country’s past submissions have been shortlisted for the prize, and 2015 marks the 10th: “Ida,” a black-and-white film about a Polish nun (Agata Trzebuchowska) who discovers she is Jewish and that her parents were…
The Latest
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What’s Black and White and Jewish All Over?
● Your Face in Mine By Jess Row Riverhead Books, 384 pages, $27.95 On a warm Sunday in February, an unidentified black man approaches Kelly Thorndike as he walks through a parking lot in Baltimore on his way to shop for groceries at the local Asian market. When Kelly sees this man, he feels a…
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Animation, ‘Archer’ and the Art of Offending
At the beginning of the sixth and current season of “Archer,” an animated spy comedy on FX, the title character, a handsome, womanizing secret agent, is sent to the jungle of Borneo to recover the computer from a downed American spy plane. While making his way across the island, Archer runs into a Japanese soldier…
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Remembering Chicago Critic and Arts Maven Andrew Patner
Andrew Patner, the Chicago arts maven who died at age 55 on February 3, looked to Jewish elders for inspiration about what culture can signify. His “I. F. Stone: A Portrait” (1988) featured a sustained interview with the radical journalist born Isidor Feinstein in Philadelphia, ranging from current politics to ancient Greek civilization. Patner was…
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Anita Shapira Examines the Rise and Fall of David Ben-Gurion
Ben-Gurion: Father of Modern Israel By Anita Shapira Yale University Press, 288 pages, $25 Another book on David Ben-Gurion? Many are the studies of the iconic Zionist leader — Shabtai Teveth’s massive and comprehensive political biography, “The Burning Ground,” is an analysis from the political center; Ben-Gurion confidant Michael Bar Zohar’s 1968 “Ben Gurion: The…
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How Hasidism Bridges Boundary Between Christianity and Judaism
Hasidism Incarnate: Hasidism, Christianity, and the Construction of Modern Judaism By Shaul Magid Stanford University Press, 288 pages, $65 In some ways, the boundary between Judaism and Christianity is a boundary about boundaries — specifically, what separates humanity from God, and whether it is ever possible to bridge the gap. Christianity, of course, has among…
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The Walmart Jews
Bentonville, Arkansas — Walmart’s hometown — offers more than just low, low prices. It’s also an anomaly in the small-town South: a Jewish community that is actually growing. Since 2004, when a handful of families met in a suburban home to discuss the possibility of founding a synagogue, Walmart has attracted both Jewish corporate employees…
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My ‘Unorthodox’ Journey to Berlin
If you asked me a few years ago whether I’d be willing to live in Germany someday I would have laughed out loud. I’ve spent the last few years living in New England, where the subtle, nuanced undercurrent of anti-Semitism is positively glaring in comparison to New York City, where I was born and raised….
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How to Send Your Jewish Kid to College — Without Stressing Out
While it’s never easy sending a kid off to college, you have to wonder if these are particularly trying times for Jewish parents. Alongside the usual concerns about academic success, laundry and the massive cost, Jewish families also contend with issues of assimilation, anti-Zionism and even anti-Semitism. After decades of normalization, Jews have, in recent…
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Can Digital Badges Save Hebrew School?
While purveyors of childhood Jewish education as a whole struggle with enrollment and relevance, a small number have become pioneering practitioners of “digital badging,” a new pedagogical model in which learners in a wide variety of learning environments earn digital badges that indicate their accomplishments, skills or knowledge. With help from associations like the Bill…
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