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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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
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Dial H For Hebrew
Alfred Hitchcock’s reputation as one of the greatest film directors of all time is safely in the can, so all that’s left to deal with is the man himself. Two new films — “Hitchcock,” a biopic starring Anthony Hopkins, and the HBO film “The Girl,” about Hitch’s troubled relationship with actress Tippi Hedren — have…
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Shimon Attie Projects Past Into Present
Artist Shimon Attie is probably best known for “Sites Unseen,” his 1990s series of temporary installations in Europe, in which he projected photographic images of a lost Jewish past onto actual sites. For “Writing on the Wall,” (1991–1993), Attie, living in Berlin at the time, was haunted by the lack of any past signs of…
The Latest
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Books Reports of Obama-Wiesel Book Deal Shot Down
Don’t be rushing to your local bookstore or fumbling with your Kindle to download the new book that Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel was said to have been writing along with his buddy President Barack Obama. The two are still BFF’s. But it turns out something must’ve gotten lost in the translation about the book thing….
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Exploring ‘Chai’ Culture
There is, so I’m told, a new off-Broadway play in New York that is called “Bad Jews.” Its plot revolves around, believe it or not, the struggle of three grandchildren for possession of their beloved and recently deceased grandfather’s “chai” (pronounced khy, with the guttural “ch” of “Bach”) — which is, as most or all…
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Miriam Margolyes Is Dickens of an Actress
When I met Miriam Margolyes at her friend’s cozy apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, she was sporting a bold floral house dress and a shock of wild white hair that seemed at odds with her upper-crust British accent. While she checked emails, she asked if I wanted anything to eat or drink, then admitted…
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Books Author Blog: Wimps
Earlier this week, Haim Watzman wrote about how to succeed in academia without doing any research and Super Tuesday. 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: Are Israeli guys real men? Yes,…
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It’s My Virginity, Not Yours
“There’s a dividing line between girls who have had sex, and girls who haven’t,” said Angela Chase, star of the cult ‘90s teenage drama “My So Called Life.” As melodramatic and myopic as Claire Danes’ Angela sounds, 21st-century popular culture still attaches transformative powers to sexual experience and views virginity (or lack thereof) as indicative…
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Spielberg’s Portrait of Lincoln Is A Bust
My suspicion that Steven Spielberg can’t really do historical films isn’t anything new, although the fact that he keeps trying shows at least how ambitious he can be. Conversely, the fact that he keeps failing, at least in my opinion, may point to a wider incapacity on the part of his audience, meaning you and…
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Books The Historian’s Challenge, Part 2
On Tuesday, Gerald Sorin wrote about ambivalence toward the genre of biography. Today, he considers the question: Can the biographer or their readers really know the subject fully? 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…
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Books How to Succeed in Academia Without Doing Research
Earlier this week, Haim Watzman wrote about Super Tuesday, journalism, and love. 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: “Are you a professor?” asked the woman sitting next to me on the…
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Left’s Love-Hate Relationship With Zionism
“From Ambivalence to Betrayal: The Left, the Jews, and Israel” By Robert S. Wistrich University of Nebraska Press, 648 pages, $55 Imagine this: It’s the summer of 1947 and you’re a Communist or a fellow traveler or a Socialist or another kind of anti-Stalinist. Despite myriad differences with political rivals, you share the same basic…
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