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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Jason Schwartzman Talks Stripping and Swinging on ‘The Overnight’
About halfway through “The Overnight,” a raunchy comedy romp released on Friday, Adam Scott and Jason Schwartzman strip down and dance completely naked. Oddly enough, that’s actually not one of the most outrageous scenes of the film, which takes two married couples on a boozy, trippy journey of exploration and self-discovery. It all starts out…
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Inside the Mad Yiddish World of Psoy Korolenko
If eyes are windows to the soul, the sills of Psoy Korolenko’s have a menorah prominently posted in them and it’s always the eighth night of Hanukkah. Despite — or is it because of? — his bushy beard, his mad-professor/Old-Testament prophet look, there is something affable and approachable about Korolenko. He has a determined stroll,…
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Billy Rose Was Showman, Patriot — and Zionist Hero
On August 3, 1964, Billy Rose suspected that Teddy Kollek, the future mayor of Jerusalem then working in the Israeli prime minister’s office, was harming his shot at immortality. Rose was furious. His plan for a sculpture garden at the Israel Museum, which turned 50 on May 11, was not just another chance for fame….
The Latest
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Books Taste Testing ‘Honey & Co.’
This is an occasional column in which the writer evaluates a cookbook by making some of its recipes, sharing the dishes with friends and asking her guests what they think of the results. She recently cooked her way through “Honey & Co: the Cookbook,” by Itamar Srulovich and Sarit Packer (Little, Brown and Company). Itamar…
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Art What’s Under Your Fashion Exhibit?
When the State of Israel first came into being 67 years ago, it harbored certain aspirations: It hoped to be not only a national homeland for the Jews and a light unto the nations, but also the fashion mecca of the Middle East. Most of us are familiar with the first two beau ideals; the…
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Richard Kind and the Marching Band That Woudn’t Leave Him Alone
When the 17-minute film “What Cheer?” appears on Short of the Week on June 17, it will mark more of a victory lap than a debut. The film has already shown at more than 25 festivals, and taken home an armful of awards, including “Best of New York” at the 2014 NY Shorts Fest. It…
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The Gloom and Redemption of Yiddish Poet Yisroel Shtern
The poet Yisroel Shtern (1894-1942) was reluctant to publish his own work, once writing about the “over-proliferation of books on this planet.” Nonetheless, in a 1929 dictionary of Yiddish writers, Zalmen Reyzen called him “one of the most important young Yiddish poets in Poland today, though for a full appreciation of his poetry… we must…
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Film & TV Is ‘Orange Is the New Black’ Anti-Semitic?
If, unlike me, you didn’t spend your entire weekend binge-watching the new season of “Orange is The New Black,” you may not be aware of the major Jewish narrative arc that has developed at Litchfield Penitentiary. My first reaction was jubilation. And then I started watching. And disappointment hit. Because despite the laughs and the…
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Where All the Reasons To Kill Are Absurd
By Kamel Daoud, translated from the French by John Cullen Other Press, 160 Pages, $14.95 Kamel Daoud kick-starts his novel with the line “Mama’s still alive today,” turning inside out the celebrated opening of Albert Camus’s “The Stranger”: “Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know.” What would Camus say were he alive today,…
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What James Merrill Thought of the Jews
James Merrill: Life and Art Langdon Hammer Knopf, 944 pages, $40.00 On the 20th anniversary of his death, this massive funerary stele of a book pays tribute to an American poet much inspired by Jewish friends and mentors. Merrill was born in 1926 to a WASP family in New York – his father was a…
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Music When Alvin Ailey Choreographs the Holocaust
With the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater presenting a Holocaust inspired piece, “No Longer Silent,” at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center, the iconic African American company has branched into new territory. In fact, it’s unprecedented, explained its artistic director Robert Battle, who choreographed the piece. Its musical score was composed by Erwin…
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