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
-
The towering Jewish critic who taught me to grok art and hate Picasso
After Max Kozloff died at 91, a New York community came together to remember and to mourn
-
Why 2013 Was the Year Fiction Got Political Again
There was a time, not so long ago, in the 1960s and ’70s, when being a serious fiction writer required not just a talent for evoking nuanced moments of lived life, but a consciousness of the intellectual and political context in which our lives were being lived. Writers — many of them Jewish — as…
-
Channeling and Challenging Eccentricity at Israel’s National Library
New York-based Israeli artist, Ofri Cnaani, has been having quite a year. One of her live video installations was screened as part of “The Met Reframed” artist residency series at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in March. A site-specific video installation titled “Moon Guardians” was displayed in Chelsea. Recently, Cnaani arrived in Tel Aviv, to…
The Latest
-
Why Theresa Bernstein Was the Jewish Artist of the Century
Artist Theresa Bernstein liked crowds. A retrospective of her work, on display through January 18 in New York at The Graduate Center, CUNY’s James Gallery, features her 1923 painting “The Immigrants,” which depicts figures grouped together on the bow of a ship. In the foreground, a mother holds a baby clearly evoking a Madonna and…
-
How Children’s Books Discovered Their Jewish Roots
In many ways, 2013 has afforded Jewish children’s literature the big break it has needed for some time — perhaps akin to the widespread attention that Jewish comic books and graphic novels have received for years, with their Jewish mice and superhuman men punching out Hitler. At the Chicago Humanities Festival in November, Paul Reitter,…
-
Why ‘The Goldbergs’ Is the Worst Thing To Happen to Television
I might be the worst possible audience for “The Goldbergs.” It’s not that I grew up in the ’90s, and the show — an ABC sitcom that just finished its first season — is all about the ’80s. And it’s not that, having grown up without a TV, many of the show’s references would be…
-
On and Off Broadway, 2013 Was the Year of The Transitional Jew
Jews of all stripes surfaced on stage this past season, starting with appearances in four notable bio-dramas: “Soul Doctor,” the musical about the rock star Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach; Joe Gilford’s “Finks,” loosely based on the experience of his blacklisted parents, Jack and Madeline Lee Gilford; and two solo shows, “I’ll Eat You Last, a Chat…
-
Mami, Oh Manischewitz, What an Album!
In the early months of 1954, with their debut single “Gee” still climbing the national pop and rhythm and blues charts, doo-wop quartet The Crows entered a Manhattan studio to record a Latin-flavored dance number called “Mambo Shevitz (Man, Oh Man).” Featuring upbeat backing from an Afro-Cuban-style ensemble billed as Melino and His Orchestra, the…
-
Film & TV How To Get De Niro and Stallone in the Ring
Thirty years ago, boxers Billy “the Kid” McDonnen and Henry “Razor” Sharp split two hard-fought light heavyweight contests. But for reasons soon revealed, there was never a rubber match, despite the personal animosity between the two. Now, three decades years later, a young promoter has convinced them to participate in a “Grudge Match,” which will…
-
How Jews Took Over Berlin in 2013
In April, a glass case in Berlin upset and polarized the Jewish world. An exhibit at the Jewish Museum, entitled “The Whole Truth… Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Jews,” included an installation consisting of a half-open glass case with the question “Are there still Jews in Germany?“ printed on it. On a bench…
-
Why Bob Dylan’s Interactive Video Is a Sign Of Things To Come
Bob Dylan’s classic hit “Like A Rolling Stone” came out in 1965, but only got a music video in 2013. Israeli director Vania Heymann and interactive video company Interlude created an interactive video for the song (full disclosure: I had a small part in the production of the video). In the video, the viewer is…
-
Adam Levine Is Sexy and Jewish. So What?
Adam Levine, front man of Maroon 5, host of “The Voice,” he of the moves like Mick Jagger, was named People’s Sexiest Man Alive this year. Is this good for the Jews? Who’s asking? For single Jewish men looking to get a date, this is very good news. Jewish men have been in a bit…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
Fast Forward Ye debuts ‘Heil Hitler’ music video that includes a sample of a Hitler speech
- 2
Opinion Anti-Israel rhetoric is fueling an alarmingly powerful new wave of antisemitism on the right
- 3
Fast Forward Trump just granted asylum to a man who posted Jews are ‘dangerous’
- 4
News After harassment at Columbia, this Jewish undergrad felt most attacked by her student paper
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Israel to increase security at its embassies around the world following DC shooting
-
Opinion How anti-Israel rhetoric led to the killing of two Jews in Washington, D.C.
-
Fast Forward Capital Jewish Museum shooting suspect killed two ‘for Gaza.’ His victims were peace advocates.
-
Fast Forward Who is Elias Rodriguez, the suspect identified in Capital Jewish Museum shooting?
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
