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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Shakedown Artist ‘Red Shirt Abie’ Convicted for Poisoning Deliverymen’s Horses
Forward Looking Back brings you the stories that were making news in the Forward’s Yiddish paper 100, 75, and 50 years ago. Check back each week for a new set of illuminating, edifying and sometimes wacky clippings from the Jewish past. 100 years ago Horse Poisoner Busted Dozens of businessmen — some victims, others simply…
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Books Dreaming at the Movies
Earlier this week, Ilan Mochari wrote about The Who and Jewish summer camp and the autobiographical elements in his novel, “Zinsky the Obscure” (Fomite Press). His blog posts are featured on The Arty Semite courtesy of the Jewish Book Council and My Jewish Learning’s Author Blog Series. For more information on the series, please visit:…
The Latest
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Revolution and Evolution of the American Cantor
It should come as no surprise to anyone who reads the Forward that American Jewish life is awash in change, much of it far-reaching and monumental. Most of us can catalog those changes in a flash: intermarriage, the waning support of traditional Jewish charities, an increasingly contested relationship with Israel. But there are other, equally…
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Film & TV Israel’s Home Movies Aren’t That Interesting
Believe it or not, there is something worse than being trapped in a friend’s living room while he unspools a year’s worth of home movies. What is that? Going to a theater and paying to watch home movies. That’s the prospect facing audiences at “Israel: A Home Movie,” an Israeli film by Eliav Lilti that…
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Deconstructing The ‘Most Pro-Israel’ Zombie Movie Ever Made
If you were to judge only by what’s been said in the media firestorm it’s left in its wake, you might assume that the new Brad Pitt zombie extravaganza, “World War Z,” is so pro-Israel that by the time the credits roll, the audience members will be singing “Hatikva” just to inoculate themselves against the…
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The Rediscovery of a Yiddish Master Painter From Czernovitz
In 2002, during a visit to his native Israel, Haim Baron’s mother urged him to buy one of his cousin Isiu Schärf’s artworks. Baron had seen some of Schärf’s work before in the apartment of his maternal grandmother, Schärf’s aunt, who had sponsored the artist’s emigration from Romania to Israel in 1974. And Baron and…
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Books Author Blog: A Word on Who I Am
Earlier this week, Ilan Mochari wrote about the autobiographical elements in his novel, “Zinsky the Obscure” (Fomite Press). His blog posts are featured on The Arty Semite courtesy of the Jewish Book Council and My Jewish Learning’s Author Blog Series. For more information on the series, please visit: A few months ago I finished Pete…
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Meet the New Generation of Jewish Magicians
Video footage recorded live at the Players Theatre. While Jews make up less than 3% of the American population, nearly 20% of American magicians are Jews. There’s David Copperfield, Ricky Jay and David Blaine, the endurance artist who sports several controversial tattoos, including the numbers that were branded on Primo Levi’s arm at Auschwitz. “Magic…
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Klezmer Musician’s Death Plunges Author Into Exploration of Madness and Grief
● The Guardians: An Elegy By Sarah Manguso Picador, 104 pages, $20. American Jewish author Sarah Manguso’s “The Guardians: An Elegy” is a strip map of a memoir about Manguso’s grief at the suicide of a close friend, a klezmer musician who suffered from recurring psychosis. Lean, elliptical and beautifully written, her book, recently released…
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Books HarperCollins Nixes ‘Wild Things’ Sequel
Those hoping there would be a sequel to Maurice Sendak’s classic children’s book “Where the Wild Things Are” are in for a disappointment. A Kickstarter campaign to raise money for a poem called “Back to the Wild” has been suspended following a copyright complaint from HarperCollins, which published the original “Wild Things.” The U.K.-based crowdfunding…
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How Dogs Went From Feared Enemy to Jew’s Best Friend
‘If you are already a dog, at least do not be a pig.” “A cantor in his old age barks like a dog and eats like a pig.” “A wife is like a dog in the house.” These and other Yiddish proverbs may be seen as objectionable today, but all reflect the complex and contradictory…
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Most Popular
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Fast Forward Why the Antisemitism Awareness Act now has a religious liberty clause to protect ‘Jews killed Jesus’ statements
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Culture Trump wants to honor Hannah Arendt in a ‘Garden of American Heroes.’ Is this a joke?
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News School Israel trip turns ‘terrifying’ for LA students attacked by Israeli teens
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Fast Forward The invitation said, ‘No Jews.’ The response from campus officials, at least, was real.
In Case You Missed It
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Culture Cardinals are Catholic not Jewish — so why do they all wear yarmulkes?
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Fast Forward Halal restaurant opening in Congress is like ‘Muslim conquest of Jerusalem,’ says GOP congressman
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Fast Forward Germany formally classifies far-right AfD party as extremist, in blow to Nazi-linked populist movement
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Fast Forward Trump taps shock jock Sid Rosenberg and a Haredi newspaper publisher for Holocaust Memorial Council
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