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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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
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Solution to Antwerp Mystery Leads to Yet Another Mystery
Rick Glaser of Orange Mills, Md. writes: “I have a Hebrew Bible published in Antwerp by Christopher Plantin, a Christian who printed a good many Hebrew texts. Its first page gives the date of publication as the Jewish 5333 — that is, 1573. Its last page gives the date of completion as 1574. Given the…
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The Jewish Inspiration That Guided Photographers of Magnum
Most photographs of the entrance to Auschwitz-Birkenau are configured in landscape views. But when Elliott Erwitt photographed the tracks leading through the building at the camp’s entrance in 1964, he created a vertically-oriented image, devoting nearly two-thirds of the photograph to the train tracks. Had Erwitt turned his camera 90 degrees to capture the entire…
The Latest
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Brooklyn Macaroni Maker Shoots Jewish Tailor in Hypnotism Spat
1913 •100 years ago Macaroni Maker Shoots Jewish Tailor Benjamin Zeidler, a tailor from the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, heard five gunshots ring out in quick succession as he was sitting at his sewing machine. Zeidler stood up to see what the commotion was about when he realized that he had been shot in his…
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Yossi Klein Halevi Delivers a Masterful Saga of Seven Israeli Paratroopers
Like Dreamers: The Story of the Israeli Paratroopers Who Reunited Jerusalem and Divided a Nation By Yossi Klein Halevi HarperCollins Publishers, 608 pages, $35 Israel’s Six Day War, in 1967, was its greatest military victory, but in the end, a costly one. The territorial gains that resulted became both flash points for conflict and bargaining…
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Film & TV How To Make a New Yiddish Film
A version of this post appeared in Yiddish here. The first words in the trailer for the new Yiddish-language film “The Pin” are “Ikh ken nit khapn dem otem” — “I can’t catch my breath.” The movie, currently playing in New York, takes place primarily in a barn in an unknown location during the Second…
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Hitler’s Willing Hollywood Collaborators
Since its publication this past summer, Ben Urwand’s book, The Collaboration: Hollywood’s Pact with Hitler, has sparked intense debate. Its claim that Hollywood’s major (Jewish-run) film studios colluded with the government of Nazi Germany to protect their economic interests has elicited angry responses from critics who have objected that the book’s thesis is deceptively sensationalistic…
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Terrifying Top 10 (Jewish) Songs for Halloween
Due to Halloween’s pagan origins, Rabbinic law prohibits the Jewish celebration of the popular autumn holiday, which might explain why there’s usually a notable scarcity of “slutty rabbi” costumes at your typical All Hallows’ Eve bacchanal. But the dark allure of haunted houses, jack-o’-lanterns and (let’s be honest here) candy corn is often too powerful…
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What I Learned From Lou Reed
There was a time when I fell into the habit of writing in my mind to Lou Reed. The thought of him and his music quickened me to narrate to him and ask him questions. He had liked my writing and we had been put in touch, and I admitted all this to him, saying…
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Remembering Lou Reed, a True Rock ‘N Roll Animal
Lou Reed — legendary rock iconoclast, gimlet-eyed poet laureate of the New York City streets, and one of the most important songwriters of the past fifty years — died yesterday at his Long Island home in Southampton, N.Y., following a long battle with liver disease. If it seems amazing that Reed lived to age 71,…
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Books How David Laskin Discovered Family’s Past
A family rumor was the genesis of David Laskin’s extraordinary new book, “The Family: Three Journeys into the Heart of the 20th Century.” Laskin heard from his mother who heard it from her cousin Barbara who heard it from her parents: that they were related to Lazar Kaganovich, henchman of Joseph Stalin and a perpetrator…
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From Sir, With Compassion: Part 2
The son of Polish Holocaust survivors, Larry N. Mayer grew up in the Bronx. His first book, “Who Will Say Kaddish?: A Search for Jewish Identity in Contemporary Poland” was published by Syracuse University Press in 2002. A graduate of Columbia University’s Teachers College, he has worked with at-risk high school students for over fifteen…
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