Why Audrey Gelman’s pastoral fantasy doesn’t make sense for Jews
The Wing founder's new "country store" is inspired by a fictional English village — with its own rabbi
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Culture A thriller from Mexico and a debut detective novel: The Jewish books you need to know this month
Welcome to your monthly tour of the Jewish literary landscape! I have four new titles to share and a special announcement — we just launched our Bookshop storefront, where you can shop the books recommended in this newsletter. I’ll be keeping the page updated with titles I’m loving, Forward Book Club picks, and other fun…
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Culture Architect of memorial synagogue at Babyn Yar: Bombing “leaves me speechless, numb and powerless”
In May, the Forward spoke to architect Manuel Herz about a new synagogue he’d designed at the site of Babyn Yar (for years commonly referred to as Babi Yar), where SS officers and Ukrainian allies murdered 34,000 Jews in 1941. Herz modeled the structure after the colorful wooden synagogues that once dotted the Pale of…
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Culture This Amsterdam neighborhood was once inhabited by Jews. None are left to celebrate its centennial
Outside 58 Weidestraat in Amsterdam’s Betondorp district, two brass stones lie set into the sidewalk. Known by the Dutch as stolpersteine, or “stumbling stones,” the square plaques are engraved with the names of Jews who moved to this neighborhood upon its creation after the First World War and were deported during the Second. Herman Richard…
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Opinion Did George Washington really love the Jews?
Editor’s note: We have republished this story, originally published in 2017, for Presidents Day. In August 1790 President George Washington took a trip to Rhode Island, the last state to have ratified the Constitution (Washington had skipped it on a tour of New England the previous fall). One of the locals who greeted him was…
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Culture What a hare with amber eyes can tell us about an art collection lost to Nazi looting
The newest installation at the Jewish Museum tells the story of a vanished world. But a series of entirely contemporary photographs are among the most striking objects on display. Captured by the Dutch architectural photographer Iwan Baan, the photos show a series of opulent rooms filled with prosaic everyday objects. A hand sanitizer dispenser stands…
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News A Nazi concentration camp on British soil? A fuller history of Alderney comes to light
It was the barbed wire that made me sense that something evil had happened. Thick, coiled and with fierce barbs every inch or so, I found it in some undergrowth on Alderney, a British island that lies just seven miles from the coast of France. You won’t find examples of it anymore, for in the…
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Culture Why do we keep turning Holocaust survivor stories into self-help books?
On a recent segment of “The Today Show,” a cadre of well-coiffed hosts discussed the life of Eddie Jaku, a 100-year-old Holocaust survivor and the author of “The Happiest Man on Earth,” a memoir about his imprisonment in Auschwitz. Grainy photos of concentration camp prisoners alternated with clips from an interview with Jaku and videos…
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Fast Forward With climate bill passed, Democrats deliver on top policy concern for American Jews
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Art Once buried in Europe, a Hitler puppet stashed in Frank Oz’s Oakland attic tells his family’s Holocaust story
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Film & TV To save Jews and keep the Nazis away, these doctors invented a fake infectious disease
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Fast Forward Elana Dykewomon, influential author whose characters were Jewish lesbians like her, dies at 72
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UPCOMING EVENT
50th meeting of the Yiddish Open Mic Cafe
Hybrid event in London and online.
Aug 14, 2022
1:30 pm ET ·
Join audiences and participants from across the globe for this live celebration of Yiddish songs, poems, jokes, stories, games, serious and funny - all performed in Yiddish with English translation.