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
-
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
-
Is It Last Dance for Kaveret, the ‘Israeli ABBA’?
Fifty years ago, Danny Sanderson was a freshman at the High School of Music & Art, in New York City’s Hamilton Heights. He was new to Manhattan, having grown up in a Tel Aviv suburb, born to parents that had made aliyah from the States in 1948. His father had recently assumed a post as…
-
Recalling the Jews, Radicals and Rogues Who Created Greenwich Village
When I was a kid in the 1970s growing up in Brooklyn, making the trek to Greenwich Village was as close as you could get to a trip down the rabbit hole. I knew vaguely about its history, but it wasn’t something folks talked about proudly, not the way they spoke about other parts of…
The Latest
-
Books Victor Navasky Knows an Anti-Semitic Cartoon
On the back flap of his new book, Victor Navasky is portrayed in a kinetic caricature by the illustrious Edward Sorel. It’s one clue about Navasky’s deep connection to political cartoons explored in “The Art of Controversy,” a personal history as well as learned survey of the form. The former editor and publisher of The…
-
Books A Jewish Tradition of Changing Names
Earlier this week, Royal Young interviewed his grandparents and wrote about his parents’ reaction to his debut memoir “Fame Shark.” 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: I changed my name from…
-
Reclaiming Jewish Classics With a Trip To the Farmers’ Market
Wandering through the farmers market with a reusable tote bag and a beatific smile has become the ultimate in foodie clichés, and for good reason. There is little more satisfying to a home cook than tipping forth the day’s haul onto the kitchen counter — a pound of coral-colored rhubarb, say, a silky pile of…
-
10 Reasons Superman Is Really Jewish
. Who knew Superman was Jewish? Well, some of us did, but a lot more didn’t. While Warner Bros. is releasing the new Superman film, “Man of Steel,” and the superhero himself is celebrating his 75th birthday, it seemed a good time to ask the author of “Superman: The High-Flying History of America’s Most Enduring…
-
Books An Interview With My Babbi and Zayde
Earlier this week, Royal Young wrote about his parents’ reaction to his debut memoir, “Fame Shark.” 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: My maternal grandmother fought to escape her Lower East…
-
True History of an Unknown Hero of the French Jewish Resistance
Shortly after she agreed to speak to me for an interview, Charlotte Sorkine Noshpitz tells me that she has had a dream. Members of her Resistance group are seated on the floor, the way children in a group sometimes arrange themselves. She is standing — behind them, looking down at their heads. She is shocked…
-
Poor Heiress Pens Unorthodox Orthodox Memoir
Rokeby is an estate along the Hudson River that was built nearly 200 years ago by relatives of John Jacob Astor, America’s first multimillionaire. About two dozen people currently live in various buildings spread out along the 400-plus acres of rolling hills. But the 43-room stucco mansion at Rokeby) is occupied by a handful of…
-
David Nirenberg Traces The Long, Bewildering History of Anti-Semitism
● Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition By David Nirenberg W.W. Norton & Company, 624 pages, $35 Anti-Semitism’s eternal recurrence is so puzzling that it can invite mystification. Even the secularist Yiddish poet Yitzchak Katznelson, grappling with the Nazi extermination of European Jewry, resorted to religious myth. In his “Song of the Murdered Jewish People” (completed shortly…
-
What Makes a Jewish Joke Jewish?
● No Joke: Making Jewish Humor By Ruth R. Wisse Princeton University Press, 292 pages, $24.95 As a well-known Yiddish expression has put it, “A joke is a half-truth.” Ruth Wisse presents readers of her latest work, “No Joke: Making Jewish Humor,” with half-a-book. The effective half offers a general audience analysis of literature and…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
Fast Forward Why the Antisemitism Awareness Act now has a religious liberty clause to protect ‘Jews killed Jesus’ statements
- 2
Culture Trump wants to honor Hannah Arendt in a ‘Garden of American Heroes.’ Is this a joke?
- 3
News School Israel trip turns ‘terrifying’ for LA students attacked by Israeli teens
- 4
Fast Forward The invitation said, ‘No Jews.’ The response from campus officials, at least, was real.
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Halal restaurant opening in Congress is like ‘Muslim conquest of Jerusalem,’ says GOP congressman
-
Fast Forward Germany formally classifies far-right AfD party as extremist, in blow to Nazi-linked populist movement
-
Fast Forward Trump taps shock jock Sid Rosenberg and a Haredi newspaper publisher for Holocaust Memorial Council
-
Music Jill Sobule was as much a Jewish icon as a queer one
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
