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
-
Philip Glass Settles Some Old Scores
Channeling the good Jewish son he never quite was, Philip Glass gives the first line of his new memoir to his mother: “If you go to New York City to study music,” she warns her youngest on the occasion of his graduation from the University of Chicago in 1957, “you’ll end up like your uncle…
-
So, Why Are Bob Dylan’s Videos So Violent Anyway?
If you’ve been watching Bob Dylan videos lately (I know it’s a select group, but if you’re reading this article, you’re probably in it), you may have noticed that a number of them are violent. Seriously violent. Gunshots, stabbing, torture violent. You may have wondered, what’s up with that? The three most violent — “Beyond…
-
Could Rahm Emanuel Lose Chicago Race to ‘Hanukkah Harry’ Challenger?
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is in a race to retain his job against Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, a career politician with strong ties to Chicago’s progressive community. And, the upcoming Chicago mayoral election being held on Tuesday, April 7, has been characterized by some as Jews for Jesus versus Jews for “Mayor 1 Percent.” After ailing…
The Latest
-
All of Abraham Lincoln’s Chosen Friends
Abraham Jonas, the attorney, and Issachar Zacharie, the foot doctor, weren’t Lincoln’s only Jewish friends. Jonathan D. Sarna and Benjamin Shapell also illuminate the nature of the president’s close relationship with three other Jewish men. Julius Hammerslough, another clothing merchant, was probably Lincoln’s first Jewish friend. He attended the president’s 1861 inauguration and was a…
-
Of Joe Biden, the Heimlich Maneuver and 8 Other Facts About (Jewish) Delaware
1) 15,100 Jews live in Delaware. 2) Former Delaware Senator and current vice-president Joe Biden ran afoul of the Anti-Defamation League in September, 2014, for using the term “Shylocks” to refer to people who engage in nefarious business practices. 3) In 1971, businessman Irving Shapiro became the first person outside of the Dupont family to…
-
Alice in Anti-Semitic Land
● Lewis Carroll: The Man and His Circle By Edward Wakeling I. B. Tauris, 480 pages, $49 Most biographies of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, the English logician and Anglican deacon who signed “Alice in Wonderland” with the pen name Lewis Carroll, misunderstood their subject entirely. In his new book, Edward Wakeling persuasively argues that Carroll was…
-
The Reformation of Morris Dickstein
● Why Not Say What Happened: A Sentimental Education By Morris Dickstein Liveright Publishing, 301 pages, $27.95 For more than 40 years, Morris Dickstein has been a dedicated, much-admired professor, scholar and author. He has achieved prominence and a wide audience for his astute essays of cultural criticism. In his first book, “The Gates of…
-
Voices of Holocaust Survivors Resound in Words of Grandchildren
● God, Faith & Identity From the Ashes: Reflections of Children and Grandchildren of Holocaust Survivors Edited by Menachem Rosensaft Jewish Lights Publishing, 352 pages, $25. Israel prize winner and this generation’s most gifted Talmudist, David Weiss Halivni, who was born in Sighet, Romania, a year and a day before his friend and fellow sighter,…
-
Was John Wilkes Booth Jewish?
In one of the most surprising sections of their new book, “Lincoln and the Jews,” historians Jonathan D. Sarna and Benjamin Shapell discuss the possibility that the president’s assassin belonged to a family of Spanish Jewish ancestry. Asia Booth Clarke, the sister of acclaimed actor John Wilkes Booth who shot Lincoln, stated in her 1882…
-
All That’s ‘Gold’ Does Not Always Glitter
If Richard Linklater’s “Before Sunrise” motivated young travelers to chat up random passengers on the train, make an impromptu stop in Vienna, spend the night wandering its streets, and finish off by having sex in the Stadtpark, Simon Curtis’s “Woman in Gold” might serve as inspiration for a different sort of tourist experience. Young American…
-
10 Ways to Make a More Modern Seder
The modern American Seder is as varied as the families who gather to celebrate it. There are more than 1,600 Haggadot to choose from, including a hip-hop version for those who want to rap their Seder tunes, an ecological Haggadah that asks us to consider the trees and a 30-Minute Seder that has you nibbling…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
Fast Forward Unarmed man who tackled Bondi Beach Hanukkah attacker identified as Ahmed al-Ahmed
- 2
Fast Forward First Puka Nacua, now Mookie Betts: Why do sports stars keep getting antisemitic around a Jewish streamer?
- 3
Fast Forward After MIT professor’s killing, Jewish influencers spread unverified antisemitism claim
- 4
Opinion I grew up believing Australia was the best place to be Jewish. This Hanukkah shooting forces a reckoning I do not want.
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Holocaust survivor event features a Rob Reiner video address — recorded just weeks before his death
-
Fast Forward In Reykjavik, Hanukkah offers a chance for Iceland’s tiny, isolated Jewish community to come together
-
Opinion When my children decorate for Hanukkah, I don’t just see pride. I see pluralism in action.
-
Fast Forward ‘The most Australian name’: Matilda, the youngest victim of the Bondi Beach attack, embodies a nation’s grief
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
