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 Novel France Can’t Put Down Depicts Muslim Future — Or Does It?
● Soumission By Michel Houellebecq French and European Publications Inc, 320 pages, $49.95 Though it pretends to be about France’s near future, Michel Houellebecq’s controversial “Soumission” is also about its recent past. Set in the year 2022, the novel portrays a country riven by conflicting ideologies and worldviews, teetering on the edge of civil war….
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How Growing Up Jewish Taught Me To Love Hip-Hop
On February 25, Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company premiered “This Is Modern Art,” a new play for its Young Audiences series. Kevin Coval, a poet and author and the founder of Louder Than a Bomb: The Chicago Youth Poetry Festival, co-wrote it with playwright Idris Goodwin. The play took as its inspiration a 2010 incident when…
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The Thing You Didn’t Know About Documentary Filmmaker Albert Maysles
We mourn Albert Maysles, one of the undisputed masters of filmmaking, with extra clarity, for his death throws our modern era’s obsession with over-eulogizing into sharp focus. Albert was not another “indispensible” documentarian that fill our graveyards (and Facebook walls); he was the real deal, the primary source. You’re either ripping Albert off, or your…
The Latest
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A Textbook Case of Anti-Semitism in Oldenburg
Oldenburg, Germany, is made of people who are historically ahead of their time. “In 1932,” a man tells me as I arrive there, “the people here were the first to vote for a local Nazi government. We did it before Berlin!” This man, I learn quickly, is not the only one in Oldenburg who remembers…
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Century of Treyf at the Best Jewish Deli in the Bronx
Teitel Brothers, a corner grocery in the Bronx, is the sort of specialty store that retains the loyalty of its customers years, even decades, after they’ve left the neighborhood. On a Friday morning in January, both the weather and business are brisk, and Gilbert Teitel wants to prove the devotion of his customers. He has…
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Of Goldie Hawn, Barry Levinson, Leon Uris and 10 Other Things About Jewish Maryland
1) 238.200 Jews live in Maryland. 2) Born in Portugal, businessman Jacob Lumbrozo became Maryland’s first Jewish resident in 1656. 3) Mendes Cohen, who was immortalized in a recent exhibit at the Jewish Museum of Maryland, helped to defend Ft. McHenry during the Battle of Baltimore in 1846. 4) Starting out his professional career as…
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How Synagogue Music Breaks Down Barriers Between Denominations
We may fret about declining enrollments in rabbinical seminaries and the ever-rising tide of intermarriage, yet one aspect of the contemporary Jewish experience should lift our spirits rather than roil them: music. From monthly concerts and annual festivals that cast a spotlight on the creativity that pulses throughout the community to Shabbat services where, week…
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Documenting the Life of Documentary Filmmaker Albert Maysles
The American Jewish filmmaker Albert Maysles, who died on March 6 at age 88, received the National Medal of Arts in 2014 for his celebrated documentaries on the Beatles; the Rolling Stones; and the reclusive relatives of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in “Grey Gardens.” Yet arguably, the most enduring inspiration for Maysles’s artistry was from Yiddishkeit….
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From the Mind of Larry David, a Play About Nothing
Although he is by all appearances a man who does what he wants when he wants, Larry David is nevertheless obsessed by etiquette. It is a recurring motif throughout his two landmark television series, “Seinfeld,” which he co-created, and “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” which he created and in which he stars. There are debates about tipping,…
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Bintel Brief: Ask Ron Dermer
For this week’s Bintel Brief, we’re proud to have Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer answering your letters. Born in Miami Beach, Dermer worked as a political operative first in America, under Republican strategist Frank Luntz, and then in Israel. Most recently, he has been Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s man in Washington, making sure that everything runs…
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Portland Finds Trendy New Jewish World in the East
(JTA) — Until recently, Jo Borkan was thinking about leaving Portland. She had lived in the city almost her whole life and owns a house on the city’s east side. But Borkan craved a connection to Judaism, and she couldn’t seem to find one that fit with her spiritual explorations into yoga and meditation. Despite…
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