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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Books
Author Blog: Precious Haroset
Jessica Soffer’s debut novel, “Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots,” will be published on April 16. Win a signed copy here. Her 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 am bored to death,…
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Marionettes and Puppetmasters Tell of Nazi Atrocities in Poland
The 23-year-old, New York-based Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theatre has forged more than a few productions that center on Jewish topics — from “Golem” to “The Very Sad Story of Ethel & Julius” to its newest piece, “King Executioner.” The latter, now playing through April 7 at Theater for the New City, explores how the Nazi-afflicted atrocities…
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Finding Passover Wisdom In The Work of Rainier Maria Rilke
Is a question profound if it has no answer? I reflected on this banality the morning after another draining Passover Seder while shuffling — fashionably late and slightly hung over — to a synagogue I found hopeful in the past. In my usual house of worship I would be recruited to lead the service in…
The Latest
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Philly Peddler’s Beard Sliced Off in Attack
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 and edifying clippings from the Jewish past. 100 Years Ago 1913 West Philadelphia peddler Jacob Wine was accosted by one Thomas White, who,…
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Books The Man Who Made the Soundtrack to Our Lives
It’s hard to pick up a newspaper or turn on the television lately without running into Clive Davis. He is promoting his memoir, “The Soundtrack of My Life” a book that might just as easily be called “The Soundtrack of Your Life.” Yes, you. Davis, 80, is a recording industry executive who helped start or…
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HBO Documentary Tells Story of Kindertransport That Saved 50 Children
**EDITOR’S NOTE: In honor of the 75th anniversary of the kindertransports, we remember the dramatic story of 50 Jewish children’s rescue from the Nazis, which started in Vienna and wound up Philadelphia. ** In early January of 1939, New York businessman Louis Levine traveled to Philadelphia to meet with Gilbert Kraus, the man he believed…
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Books Graphic Novelist Returns to Berlin
Miriam Katin appears naked in one panel of “Letting It Go,” her new graphic memoir about coming to terms with her past as a Holocaust survivor. But the rest of this novel-length confessional comic is even more revealing. Her first full-length work since 2006’s award-winning Holocaust memoir “We Are On Our Own,” “Letting It Go”…
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How ‘Downton Abbey’ Plundered the Story of ‘Fiddler on the Roof’
Lord Grantham is Tevye the Milkman. As the trials and tribulations marking the third season of BBC’s “Downton Abbey” came to a close, the realization hit me: Julian Fellowes has created a WASP version of “Fiddler on the Roof.” Despite obvious differences, the fundamental premise is identical: how a proud man with three daughters copes…
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Books How Do You Solve a Problem Like the VIDA Count?
Elissa Strauss is right to note that VIDA’s third annual count of male vs. female bylines in “thought leader magazines” created a reaction that, at first, amounted to a giant shrug. Over the past few years many writers, Elissa most notable among them, have asked editors to respond to “The Count.” Most did not take…
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Palestine Might Still Be A Better Name Than Israel
‘He’s not going to give up one inch of Eretz Israel,” New York Times columnist Roger Cohen quotes Israeli political scientist Shlomo Avineri as saying of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on February 15. And Cohen adds, by way of explanation, “Eretz Israel is a biblical term widely used to refer to the area between the…
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Forverts Prints 150,000 Copies Per Day
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 and edifying clippings from the Jewish past. 100 Years Ago 1913 According to official figures, the Forverts has been selling 139,960 copies of…
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Film & TV The new ‘Superman’ is being called anti-Israel, but does that make it pro-Palestine?
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Fast Forward Tucker Carlson calls for stripping citizenship from Americans who served in the Israeli army
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Opinion This German word explains Trump’s authoritarian impulses — and Hitler’s rise to power
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Music ‘No matter what, I will always be a Jew.’ Billy Joel opens up about his family’s Holocaust history
In Case You Missed It
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Culture Rabbi, get your gun
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Opinion How I got AI to create fake Nazi memos — and what that means for the future of antisemitism
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Fast Forward How the Jewish commandment to ‘be fruitful and multiply’ could help a woman challenge Kentucky’s abortion ban in court
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Yiddish ווידעאָ: יוטוב־פּערזענלעכקייט רעדט אויף ייִדיש וועגן אַ משפּחה־טראַגעדיעVIDEO: Youtube personality speaks in Yiddish about a tragedy in the family
מאַטי מענדלאָוויטשעס ברודער, וואָס האָט יאָרן לאַנג געליטן פֿון דעפּרעסיע, האָט הײַיאָר זיך גענומען דאָס לעבן. .
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