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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Film & TV
Jesse, Earl, the Dying Girl and Hebrew School
Jesse Andrews is having another moment. Three years ago, the 32-year-old’s debut novel “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl” hit bookstores, topped the New York Times best seller list and proved that a story of friendship between high school senior Greg and his cancer-stricken friend Rachel, could deliver pure comedy and gentle poignancy, without…
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Film & TV How a Violin Forged Tie Between a Holocaust Survivor and a Girl From the Bronx
Joseph Feingold first laid eyes on the violin at a flea market outside of Frankfurt. The year was 1947, and the 23-year-old Holocaust survivor, who was living in a displaced persons camp, traded a carton of American cigarettes for the instrument. As the young man picked up the bow for the first time since his…
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Jerry Weintraub, ‘Old School’ Hollywood Producer, Dies at 77
Jerry Weintraub, the colorful and controversial producer whose films included “Nashville,” “Diner,” “The Karate Kid” and the trio of “Ocean’s Eleven” films, died Monday of cardiac arrest in Santa Barbara, Calif. He was 77. He had been in poor health recently. When he received Variety’s Creative Leadership Award in 2013, Weintraub told Variety that he…
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Old Traditions in New L.A.
and her husband, David Nahai, have been living together in Los Angeles for 33 years — 24 of them in their current home in Benedict Hills. Both are of Persian descent. Gina, 54, is a writer and professor of creative writing at the University of Southern California. David is an attorney and environmental activist. Their…
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Say Hello to the Internet’s Biggest Jewish Stars
The Internet has its own awards show (The Webby Awards). It has its own political issues (net neutrality), its own currency (Bitcoin), and its own push-of-a-button sad trombone (sadtrombone.com). The Internet has its own — well, just about anything. So it’s only natural, then, that the Internet would have a flock of talented, resourceful, sometimes-controversial…
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Dog Saves Family From Robbers on the Lower East Side
100 Years Ago Magistrate McQuaid of the Tombs court paid high praise to Prince, a dog that caught a thief on Madison Street on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Prince belongs to the Rosenstein family, who were nearly the victims of a robbery. The Rosensteins’ 16-year-old son, Jacob, had just returned home from walking the dog,…
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Meet the Top 11 Jewish Sellout Artists
It’s a long way to the top if you want to rock ’n’ roll, as some wise man once said; and even once you get there, you may be waiting awhile for the promised rewards to start rolling in. While there’s a long tradition of criticizing musicians for “selling out” when they release music with…
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I Gave Money To a Panhandler And Had a Supernatural Epiphany
The stranger who approached me during my lunchbreak in Manhattan one day was in his 40s, compact and animated — or perhaps twitchy. He asked for cab fare to visit his 7-year-old daughter, who was undergoing cancer treatment in a hospital across town. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t have any cash.” It was an…
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Bob Morris and Jesse Oxfeld Talk Love and Guilt
Bob Morris grew up on Long Island with two larger-than-life parents, Joe and Ethel Morris. In 2002, after years of illness, his mother died. Four years later, after a few good years, a few bad ones and then, essentially, surrender — there was a halfhearted suicide attempt — his father died, too. In a very…
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Will a Selfie at Auschwitz Make You Free?
A couple of weeks ago, I stood before a crematorium at Auschwitz-Birkenau and listened to the tour guide talk about the sonderkommandos. The sonderkommandos, he explained quietly, were the prisoners tasked with removing dead corpses from the gas chambers – after the victims had been showered with cyanide and choked to death – and then…
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Moliere as a Sitcom, Complete With Jewish Mother Jokes
Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the most marriageable of all? According to a recent New York Times article, “How To Make Online Dating Work,” 70% of gay and lesbian couples meet online. Unfortunately, no one sent a link of that article to Jordan Berman (Gideon Glick), the gay man at the heart of Joshua…
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Holy Ground A Jewish farmer broke ground on a synagogue in an Illinois cornfield. His neighbors showed up to help.
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Opinion I discovered anti-Zionism at the University of Michigan. I’m glad it lives on there
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Opinion An alarming new battleground in campus fights over Israel
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Opinion Outrage over Nicholas Kristof’s op-ed on sexual assault of Palestinians is missing the point
In Case You Missed It
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Opinion I run The Jewish Theological Seminary. Here’s the real story about President Isaac Herzog speaking at our commencement
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Opinion Outrage over Nicholas Kristof’s op-ed on sexual assault of Palestinians is missing the point
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News Why do some people think Mike Lawler is Jewish?
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Art At the Venice Biennale, protests, self-mutilation and rage against Israel and Russia. Is anyone left to talk about the art?