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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That time Yiddishists met extraterrestrials a short while ago in a galaxy not far away
It was a normal summer internship at the Yiddish Book Center ... until the Jedi invaded our turf
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Why Non-Orthodox Judaism Is Doomed
Back in 1977, a young writer published a bold book that tried to propel aliyah, or emigration to Israel, to the heart of the American Jewish agenda. Hillel Halkin, who had made the move himself from New York seven years earlier, didn’t mince his words, and declared the Diaspora “doomed.” The future of the Jewish…
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Lipa Schmeltzer Reaches For Broadway and Beyond
It’s not every day that Town Hall, New York City’s fabled home to Billie Holiday, Bob Dylan and other legendary performers, gets to welcome a yarmulke-clad crowd of 1,500. And it is not every day that the yarmulke-clad crowd of 1,500 gets to see one of its own perform on a Broadway stage. On the…
The Latest
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A Kabbalah for Architects?
● Kabbalah in Art and Architecture By Alexander Gorlin Pointed Leaf Press, 192 pages, $60 ● Constructing Memory: Architectural Narratives of Holocaust Museums By Stephanie Shosh Rotem Peter Lang International Academic Publishers, 217 pages, $71.20 Although architecture has long been thought of as enjoying minimal importance in the Jewish tradition, present-day scholarship continues to show…
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Apple’s Jewish History — 30 Years After Iconic Super Bowl Ad
Thirty years ago, a revolutionary Super Bowl commercial by Apple boldly proclaimed that “1984 won’t be like 1984” because of the imminent arrival of the Macintosh computer. Two days later, on January 24, a young Steve Jobs officially introduced the computer that would change the history of personal computing. But behind the charismatic, bow-tied genius…
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Books B.J. Novak Is Writing a Children’s Book
All that dancing around to “Let’s Go Fly a Kite” in “Saving Mr. Banks” seems to have given B.J. Novak a taste for children’s literature. The Jewish actor and TV writer, who plays composer/lyricist Bob Sherman in the movie about the making of “Mary Poppins,” has signed with Penguin Young Readers Group to do a…
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Picturing Love and Intermarriage in New York
In September 2009, an Israeli TV and internet campaign aimed at dissuading Jews from marrying non-Jews upset many in the Diaspora – including Yael Ben-Zion, an American-born photographer, who lives together with her French, non-Jewish husband in New York City. So Ben-Zion, 40, who grew up in Israel, posted an ad at an online parenting…
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Setting the Record Straight on Amiri Baraka
The Newark-born playwright and poet Amiri Baraka (formerly known as LeRoi Jones and Imamu Amear Baraka), who died on January 9 at age 79, has been receiving tributes, including in a few Jewish publications. This is unusual, for regardless of the supposed merits of his writings, over some decades Baraka produced a consistent series of…
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Polish Parliamentarian Says Jews Must Emigrate
1913 •100 years ago Moyshe the Greener To Face Death Twice For the second time, Morris Bernstein, better known as “Moyshe the Greener,” will finally stand before a Brooklyn grand jury for last December’s murder of the Brownsville cloakmaker Harry Vileinki. The case made waves because fellow cloakmaker Abe Lipshitz was initially arrested for the…
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How Lena Dunham’s ‘Girls’ Rescued My American Dream
I discovered “Girls” when it was well into the second season. I had lived in New York for several months to attend the Columbia University School of Journalism. The initial excitement of being in the City That Never Sleeps had waned. I had gotten used to discovering that almost every other person I met was…
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How I Won a Marathon in Israel
There are two Meccas, one in Saudi Arabia and the other, you’ll never guess, in Israel. The one in Saudi Arabia is for Muslim pilgrims, the one in Israel is for journalists. There are more journalists in this little part of the world than cats. And, believe you me, there is no place on the…
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Is ‘Quenelle’ Backwards Version of Nazi Salute?
By now you may think you’ve heard or read all you want to about the quenelle, the double hand movement that was popularized by the French comedian Dieudonné and has been all over the news since the French soccer star Nicolas Anelka performed it after scoring a goal in a game in England on December…
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Most Popular
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Fast Forward Rep. Max Miller says driver called him a ‘dirty Jew’ and threatened to kill his family. A local doctor turned himself in.
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News An Alabama millionaire offered Jews $50,000 to move to his town. 16 years later, what’s left?
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Culture Why is Israel’s attack on Iran called ‘Rising Lion’ — and what does the Bible have to do with it?
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News As Israel attacks, what is life like for Jews in Iran?
In Case You Missed It
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Culture How a Jewish reporter like me got addicted to Christian media
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Opinion Israeli leaders are using Holocaust comparisons to justify attacks on Iran. Is that kosher?
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Fast Forward Over half of Jewish students at Columbia experienced discrimination and exclusion after Oct. 7, survey shows
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Fast Forward Journalist board of Shtetl, news site covering haredi Orthodoxy, resigns after founder renounces mission
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