Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of Jewish culture. Here, you’ll learn about the latest (and sometimes earliest) in Jewish art, music, film, theater, books as well as the secret Jewish history of everything and everyone from The Rolling Stones to…
Culture
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I have seen the future of America — in a pastrami sandwich in Queens
San Wei, which serves pastrami sandwiches along with churros and biang biang noodles, represents an immigrant's fulfillment of the American dream
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Our Month With the Lemba, Zimbabwe’s Jewish Tribe
Zimbabwe is not a popular tourist destination for Americans Jews, or Americans at all. But in October of last year, we — a retired lawyer and a retired health care executive from New York City — went there to meet with an emerging Jewish community with ancient roots, the Lemba. Modreck Maeresera, one of the…
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When I Played Klezmer for Kiev Uprising Crowd
Dmitry Gerasimov is the leader of a Ukrainian klezmer band that performed for protesters at the Kiev uprising. He describes the experience in an essay that was translated into English by Talia Lavin (JTA) At the Maidan, your clothes quickly start smelling like a campfire; in the metro, you can figure out who has been…
The Latest
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Music Business Coalition Pushes Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu To Forge Peace Deal
The latest coalition of Israelis and Palestinians hoping to affect the settlement of the conflict is not your usual bunch of peace activists. They are wealthy businesspeople who work in a broad range of sectors, from construction to high-tech. They don’t need to struggle to be heard in the halls of power — they already…
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Conan O’Brien’s Hasidic Maskmaker
‘When one puts on a mask, one frees oneself,” said Stanley Allan Sherman. Sherman has been making masks for over 30 years, yet his career defies easy categorization. His clients have ranged from pro-wrestlers to high-wire walker Philippe Petit, for whom he created a top hat that would remain on his head during performances. Sherman…
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Memoirs of Harry Rosenfeld, Newspaperman Who Survived Kristallnacht and Covered Watergate
If you’re lucky and smart, life as a newshound means that your day job consists of being a semi-ordinary person thrust into extraordinary circumstances. You invariably sidle up to history — and its makers — just by showing up for work. As a boy growing up in Hitler’s Berlin, Harry Rosenfeld, author of the new…
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Music Lies and Silence Surround Kosher Slaughter Scandal in Poland
(JTA) After a Polish court tossed out a government regulation permitting kosher slaughter in 2012, Poland’s $500 million ritual slaughter industry was expected to be brought to its knees. Evidence shows, however, that not only was kosher slaughter still being performed in Poland as recently as this month, but also that kosher meat producers had…
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Music Poland Official In Hot Water Over Drunken ‘Heil Hitler’ Outburst
Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Thursday he is considering the future of a senior party ally who is alleged to have drunkenly shouted “Heil Hitler!” at a German airport official. The incident involving Jacek Protasiewicz, vice-president of the European parliament, is embarrassing for Poland because it has been trying to put aside wartime…
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Why Jews Stood Up for Richard Wagner
There’s an episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” in which Larry David is caught whistling Wagner’s “Siegfried Idyll” to his wife in front of a movie theater. A hysterical and unhinged nudnik accosts him, spouting the common litany of charges against Wagner (“history’s biggest anti-Semite,” “millions of Jews marched to the gas chambers with Wagner’s music…
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Murder of Jewish Teenager in Damascus Sparks Panic Among Syrian Jewry
1913 •100 years ago Witnesses Recant in Leo Frank Case A second witness in the Leo Frank case in Atlanta has come forward to say that prosecutors swayed him to provide false testimony during the trial that led to Frank’s conviction. A 15-year-old paper boy, George Epps, now contends that he was coached to testify…
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Books Did Dreyfus Affair Really Inspire Herzl?
The idea that the trial of Alfred Dreyfus inspired Theodor Herzl to write “The Jewish State” is “simply not true,” Shlomo Avineri declared in a pointed, fluent, and well-received lecture that opened the first full day of London’s Jewish Book Week on February 23. Discussing his biography of the father of modern Zionism, “Herzl: Theodor…
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Harold Ramis Was All of Us
Ask any fan of the 1981 comedy “Stripes” about their favorite scenes from the film, and a sizeable percentage will recall the one where Bill Murray and Harold Ramis, seeking to escape their respective dead-end existences, visit a local Army recruiting office. Murray gets most of the laughs in the scene, but Ramis gets off…
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