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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Film & TV
Celebrating the Beauty of Israel in Film
On Yom Haatzmaut morning, bright and early at 8:30 am, my four-year-old son Asher broke a crystal vase. It was an accident, but it could have been avoided. He could have chosen to play in a different place, and we as parents could have guided him better in his morning shenanigans. Horrified, Asher asked if…
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How Some Piffle About Mr. Pouffle Inspired John Kerry’s ‘Poof’
If anyone thought “Poof!” would go poof in a single column, he or she thought wrongly. That column ended, you may recall, with my tracing the word with which John Kerry summed up the failure of Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations to the phrase “Piff, paff, pouf” in the French Jewish composer Jacques Offenbach’s opera “La Grande-Duchesse…
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Books A Whole Day (And Book) to Celebrate Your Jewish Mom
Rachel Ament with her mom // Courtesy of Rachel Ament Mayim Bialik’s mom thinks you’re jealous of her. If Barbra Streisand could be so famous and amazing and wonderful with her nose, why should mine be any problem Actually, the way my mother told it, I was indeed a fantastic, gorgeous person and I am…
The Latest
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Nikita Khrushchev Denounces Israel to Egyptians
1914 • 100 years ago A Lion of Socialism is Dead Daniel De Leon, leader of the Socialist Labor Party, died of a heart attack at Mount Sinai Hospital. The news that De Leon is dead will call forth the deepest feelings of sadness in every Socialist’s heart. A lion has passed. Figures such as…
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Orthodox Vendors Disappear With Hopes for Chicago Cubs Wins at Wrigley Field
(JTA) – Longtime fans of the Chicago Cubs know there are a few mainstays they can expect when they visit Wrigley Field: ivy on the outfield walls, a strict no-wave policy rigorously enforced by fans and, most days, disappointing play by the hometown team. But there’s one little-known quirk at Wrigley that appears to be…
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Roz Chast Commemorates Parents in Cartoons, Between Atheism and Gefilte Fish
Humanity’s oldest dream turns out to be Roz Chast’s worst nightmare. “Imagine some horrible dystopian future, some 50 years from now, where people just stop dying,” she says, sitting in her living room in quaint, rural Connecticut, surrounded by pastel-colored walls, books and colorful knickknacks. “They’re 98, they’re 102, they’re 107, they’re 112” — the…
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Jewish Drag Kings Reclaim Male Roles for Women
In “Floodlines,” a site-specific theater piece that took Jaclyn Pryor seven years to create, a Jewish funeral cortege travels through the streets of Austin, Texas. Each car sports a small Jewish star. The audience members, who have assumed the role of mourners in the cars, watch various enactments that take place on the streets. Later…
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How Sammy Davis Jr. Became the Great Jewish Entertainer
● Sammy Davis Jr.: A Personal Journey with My Father By Tracey Davis and Nina Bunche Pierce Running Press, 208 pages, $30 ‘Even when my own people would complain to me about racism,” Sammy Davis Jr. told his daughter shortly before the end of his life, “I would always say, ‘You got it easy. I’m…
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Music Jewish Ukrainian Mayor Regains Consciousness in Israeli Hospital
The Jewish mayor of Ukraine’s second-largest city regained consciousness in an Israeli hospital following what is believed to be an assassination attempt. Gennady Kernes, who heads the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, awoke Monday at the Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa after two surgeries, Kharkov’s chief rabbi and Chabad emissary, Rabbi Moshe Moskovitz, told…
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Music Two Palestinians Executed In Gaza Strip as Israeli Spies
Two Palestinians were executed in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday as Israeli spies, the enclave’s Islamist Hamas government said, adding they had helped the Jewish state’s armed forces carry out lethal operations. The condemned men, one of whom was hanged and the other shot by firing squad, “provided the Occupation (Israel) with information that led…
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Music Mango the Bear Undergoes Surgery in Israel
(Haaretz) — Mango the brown bear was clearly in pain, as his keepers at Israel’s Ramat Gan Zoological Park observed some three weeks ago. He was eating well, but his walk had slowed and he clearly didn’t like getting up. Sure, there was clearly a problem, but just try asking a bear where it hurts….
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Opinion Trump is backed into a corner on Iran. Get ready for him to start blaming Jews
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Opinion I’m a Jewish candidate for New York comptroller. Our state must divest from Israel bonds
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News Brad Lander joins call to end U.S. aid to Israel, in quest to replace Rep. Dan Goldman
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News Atlanta movie exec who complained of ‘nasty Jews’ is running for Congress
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Books A new book explores the vibrancy of pre-war Warsaw
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