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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Art
History of Dutch Jews Role in Slavery Is Bluntly Depicted
‘The word ‘slave’ is used in this exhibition,” notes a wall text at “Jews in the Caribbean: Four Centuries of History in Suriname and Curacao” at Amsterdam’s Jewish Historical Museum. “The museum is aware of the controversial nature of this term. ‘Slaves,’ as used here, refers to African men, women, and children taken captive and…
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Of Goldie Hawn, Theater J and 8 Other Things About (Jewish) Washington D.C.
1 28,000 Jews live in Washington, D.C. 2 In 1847, there were roughly 25 Jews in all of Washington. 3 Washington’s first Jewish congregation, which came to be known as the Washington Hebrew Congregation, first convened in 1852. But when a melodeon, an organ-like instrument, was introduced at the shul shortly thereafter, a number of…
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When Langston Hughes Sang Jewish America
Selected Letters of Langston Hughes By Langston Hughes Edited by Arnold Rampersand Knopf, 480 pages, $35 These missives written by one of the most limpid African-American poets are self-concealing in the extreme. Langston Hughes was so discreet that when he was hospitalized for gonorrhea in 1941, he told intimate friends that the problem was arthritis….
The Latest
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In Search of the Jews of Jurassic World
Obviously, it doesn’t matter whether I liked “Jurassic World.” The movie made $520 billion, so one man’s opinion means nothing. But even though I hated that dumb movie as much as I’ve ever hated anything, I still paid my money like all the other chicken-wing-chomping idiots in that suburban theater that Saturday night. At least…
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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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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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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….
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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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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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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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