Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of the robust lives of American Jews. Here there’s a little of everything about the multifaceted world of Jewish life. There are light-hearted Jewish celebrity stories and shocking Jewish celebrity news. Food is also plentiful,…
Life
-
A Jewish Nobel Prize Winner’s Gift to Girls
When Professor Ada Yonath, the bubbly, animated scientist with Einstein-like hair as well as intelligence, received the phone call several days ago informing her that was shortlisted for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, she thought someone was playing a joke on her. “I said, ‘Yeah, right, so should I make an appointment for the hairdresser…
-
From Papa Haydn to Tateh Haydn?
Among the many commemorations of the 200th anniversary of the death of composer Joseph Haydn is a compelling new study from Cambridge University Press, “Haydn’s Jews: Representation and Reception on the Operatic Stage” by Caryl Clark, a University of Toronto musicologist. Ms. Clark points out that in Eisenstadt, Austria, the palace of the Eszterházy family,…
-
E-mailing with Evil: Covering Westboro Baptist Church
Reporter’s Notebook Often my job as a news reporter gives me the chance to talk to fascinating, thoughtful people whom I’d otherwise never get to meet. Other times, it puts me in contact with characters who make me want to reach for the brain bleach. This week was one of the latter occasions, as I…
The Latest
-
Why the Anne Frank YouTube Video Is So Unsettling
I logged onto the computer last weekend to see that Anne Frank was a trending topic on Twitter. That was largely thanks to the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, which released (as the Bintel Blog reported) a new video, showing the only known footage of Anne, leaning out of a window and watching a married…
-
Nobel Prize for Literature to German-Romanian Writer
Herta Mueller, a member of Romania’s German minority living in exile in Germany has won this year’s Nobel Prize for literature. Her father served in the Waffen SS in World War II but her work has dealt with the harshness of life under postwar communism, leading her work to be banned in Romania. Earlier in…
-
Israeli Scientist (and Grandmother) Wins Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Take that, Larry Summers. Israeli scientist (and grandmother!) Ada Yonath, 70, became the first woman since 1964 to win the Nobel Prize in chemistry — and the first Israeli woman ever to do so. According to Nobel Prize selection board, Yonath, together with Venkatraman Ramakrishnan of the U.K. and Thomas Steitz of the U.S., received…
-
French Jewish Philosopher Alain Finkielkraut Cracks the Books
Having survived a bout with lymphoma last fall, the French Jewish philosopher and essayist Alain Finkielkraut has come back fighting, with an ambitious and thoughtful new book on literature, “Un coeur intelligent” (An Intelligent Heart; Stock Flammarion, Paris ), an examination of nine novels, including Philip Roth’s “The Human Stain” (2000) and Ukrainian Jewish writer…
-
Kosha Dillz Wins Award for Best Use of Obscure Linguistic Text in a Hip Hop Video
Two minutes 28 seconds through the video below comes a revealing snapshot of David A. Pharies’s fascinating article, “A Structural Correspondence in the Lexicons of Basque and Spanish.” Only page 119 is featured. I know, it’s disappointing, but I’ve put the full reference below for those who want the whole Neuphilologische Mitteilungen experience.* Otherwise the…
-
Al Jazeera and the Prospect of Peace
What effect does watching Al Jazeera have on the mindset of Israeli Arabs? A fascinating new piece of research suggests that watching the network makes Israeli Arabs more convinced that the Middle East conflict will escalate. Some 53% of Israeli Arabs who regularly tune in to Al Jazeera believe the Arab-Israeli conflict will escalate in…
-
North Korea’s Scary Menorah of People
Our man in the Far East, Nick Frisch (who you might remember from such stories as “The Wild Grass Grows High,” “Kosher Chinese: Jewish and Asian Currents Find Harmony in Opera,” or “Schnorientalism: The Tao of Jews” ) wanted to make sure we didn’t miss this “random bit of quasi-Jewish esoterica.” If you wanted someone…
-
Why Are Female Directors Silent About Roman Polanski’s Arrest?
I have yet to hear my fellow female directors calling for Roman Polanski to return to the United States to face sentencing for his admitted guilt of statutory rape. I guess I mistakenly believed that as women and artists we would be genuinely appalled that a man got away with raping a 13-year-old girl. And…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
Fast Forward ‘Murdered for speaking truth’: Netanyahu and US Jewish leaders mourn Charlie Kirk
- 2
Antisemitism Decoded Israel is being blamed for Charlie Kirk’s death. Here’s what that conspiracy theory says about the far right’s divide
- 3
News Who was Horst Wessel, and why are people comparing Charlie Kirk to him?
- 4
Fast Forward The fraudster at the center of an NBA scandal once proclaimed ‘tzedek tzedek tirdof’
In Case You Missed It
-
Opinion He showed Americans the visceral horrors of the Third Reich — what would he think of Trump’s US?
-
News Why Nazi comparisons triggered Trump after Charlie Kirk’s assassination
-
Antisemitism Decoded Israel is being blamed for Charlie Kirk’s death. Here’s what that conspiracy theory says about the far right’s divide
-
Film & TV Forty years later, we need ‘The Golden Girls’ now more than ever
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
