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
-
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
-
Some Putin for Purim
The Backward is the Forward’s annual satirical Purim edition. Enjoy! Moscow’s strong man, Russian president Vladimir Putin, visits the new local Jewish museum where two docents show him around.
-
Jewish Demographic Study Reveals Drastic Need for Jewish Demographers
The Backward is the Forward’s annual satirical Purim edition. Enjoy! More stories here… According to today’s late-mid-morning Jewish Population Survey (#4 out of the day’s 19), the field of Jewish demographers has rapidly dwindled to just Steven M. Cohen. “I am lonely — so very, very lonely,” says Cohen, of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of…
The Latest
-
‘Birthright Israel’ Donors Unveil Spinoff: ‘BootyCall Israel’
The Backward is the Forward’s annual satirical Purim edition. Enjoy! More stories here… Over a decade of trips means the “Taglit-Birthright Israel” bus is an accustomed sight throughout Israel, usually idling in front of you for hours in traffic. But now a lot more of those buses are expected to dot the Jewish State —…
-
Aly Project a Golden Success
The Backward is the Forward’s annual satirical Purim edition. Enjoy! More stories here… Aly Raisman, the young gymnast who won hearts around the world with her gold medal floor routine set to “Hava Nagila,” is actually the product of the top-secret Aleph Project, a multi-year scientific effort to develop a Jewish sports icon for the…
-
Cutbacks on Volunteer Trips Fatally Weaken College Resumés
The Backward is the Forward’s annual satirical Purim edition. Enjoy! More stories here… Recent cuts to service trips for Jewish teens may devastate one of the core missions of the Jewish organizational world — getting Jewish students into the best universities. Now, a variety of Jewish not-for-profit organizations are racing to fill the gaps in…
-
Backward Looking Back: Glimpses of the Backward Archives
The Backward is the Forward’s annual satirical Purim edition. Enjoy! More stories here… 100 years ago 1913 Backward editor Babe Kahan returned from a month-long trip to Europe, during which he visited those “bastions of peaceful civilization” France and Germany, as well as the “delightful” Balkan countries of Serbia and Montenegro. In each community Kahan…
-
Lost in Language: Of Dead Dogs, Living Lions & Bifid Uvulae
The Backward is the Forward’s annual satirical Purim edition. Enjoy! More stories here… In Kohelet it says, “For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope; for a living dog is better than a dead lion.” Now quite why the writer of Kohelet wants to be joined to a living dog…
-
The Partial Pinking of Hamas
The Backward is the Forward’s annual satirical Purim edition. Enjoy! More stories here… In a surprise development following its recent endorsement of women rabbis, Hamas announced last week that it is preparing to embrace gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered individuals for new roles in its own community. “We think they would make excellent suicide bombers,”…
-
UNESCO Saves Humor From Itself
The Backward is the Forward’s annual satirical Purim edition. Enjoy! More stories here… After a long process, UNESCO has declared Jewish jokes as World Heritage Treasures. This follows a similar decision by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization to protect Irish jokes for posterity. UNESCO representative Sven Svensson told the Backward that the…
-
Books Ben Katchor and Hand-Drying in America
In today’s installment of the Visiting Scribe, Eddy Portnoy sat down with Ben Katchor to discuss his newest book, “Hand-Drying in America: And Other Stories,” which will be published by Pantheon Books on March 5. Their blog posts are featured on The Arty Semite courtesy of the Jewish Book Council and My Jewish Learning’s Author…
-
An Air-Conditioned Palestinian State
The Backward is the Forward’s annual satirical Purim edition. Enjoy! More stories here… From the world of sport comes a message of hope. The Emir of Qatar has announced that after his country hosts the FIFA soccer world cup in 2022, he will donate the stadiums and related transportation infrastructure to the Palestinian people to…
Explore
Most Popular
In Case You Missed It
-
Film & TV Is there a Messianic Jew on Disney’s ‘Mickey Mouse Funhouse’?
-
Culture Ye’s antisemitism is old news, but it’s time to pay attention again
-
Opinion Edan Alexander’s release was the last good news we’ll get from wartime Israel
-
Art How the war changed an artist’s life, his politics — and his painting
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
