Is Neil Simon still funny? (Hint: This may be a trick question.)
Feeling cheerfully kvetchy about Neil Simon is a very Neil Simon way to feel
Comedy
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Culture In a delightful new Purim film, Esther is a secret agent in Argentina
In its long history, the Purim story has had its fair share of reboots. Because, in every generation, a new Haman arrives to oppress us, that genocidal adviser has worn the face of Hitler and, when Stalin suffered a stroke on Purim, averting his own dire plans for Jews, he wore a different mustache entirely….
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Yiddish World YidLife Crisis comedy show, ‘Pandemish,’ streaming soon
When people today use the term “Yiddish comedy”, they usually mean a standup act or film in English with Yiddish words tacked on for comic effect. The online comedy web series, “YidLife Crisis”, created and starring Eli Batalion and Jamie Elman, is completely different. As many of you saw with their hilarious clip on Jewish…
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Culture Remembering Bob Saget, Millennials’ embarrassing, bawdy, beloved Jewish dad
Children of the ‘90s discovered Bob Saget in phases – he was one of the rare comedy acts that aged with you, while never quite maturing. The comedian, who was found dead in a Florida hotel room Sunday at the age of 65, first entered my life as Danny Tanner, the neat freak single father…
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Culture Why Bob Einstein — aka Marty Funkhouser from ‘Curb,’ aka Super Dave, aka Officer Judy — contained multitudes
Bob Einstein was a comedic test case in nature versus nurture. In the end, comedy was what came naturally. The son of vaudevillian Parkyakarkus (né Harry Einstein), who was a crackup on the radio and around the dinner table, Einstein had a showbiz pedigree. And yet, he rejected the call of entertainment until he was…
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Opinion WATCH: Can you do better than comedian Alex Edelman at ‘Yiddish or Gibberish’?
On November 20th, comedian Alex Edelman paid a visit to the Forward’s Manhattan offices. We tested him on his Yiddish knowledge, learned about his unique bar mitzvah, and Alex teased his new solo show “Just For Us.”
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Opinion Alex Edelman crashed a white supremacist meeting. It left him grappling with his own Jewish identity
Alex Edelman’s new solo show, “Just For Us,” opens with a re-enactment of a white supremacist meeting. As he describes the Queens apartment in which he attended a 2017 gathering of neo-Nazis, he gets the audience laughing at both white supremacist “civility” and at the fact that he ended up being more talkative than two-thirds…
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Culture Mel Brooks delivers 500 pages on his favorite subject – himself
All About Me!: My Remarkable Life in Show Business By Mel Brooks Ballantine Books, 480 pages, $25 Mel Brooks’ memoir begins with a promise. In a preface, the 95-year-old actor-writer-director vows to make an intimate confession to his reader — one not to be shared with anyone. Then, he thinks a bit more about the…
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Opinion What Jewish university presidents say: Trump is exploiting campus antisemitism, not fighting it
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Fast Forward Jewish students, alumni decry ‘weaponization of antisemitism’ across country
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Opinion I first met Netanyahu in 1988. Here’s how he became the most destructive leader in Israel’s history
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Opinion Why can Harvard stand up to Trump? Because it didn’t give in to pro-Palestinian student protests
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Culture How an Israeli dance company shaped a Catholic school boy’s life
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