Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of the Lower East Side, a neighborhood in Manhattan that was a center of Jewish immigrant culture in the 20th century.
Lower East Side
The Latest
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Culture Houdini, My Father and Me
My father, a New York psychoanalyst, wrote about the sons of passive or absent fathers. (There was doubtless a reason why they interested him.) Among his many elegant papers and monographs, covering such (seemingly) disparate characters as Bishop James Pike and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, are two published full-length biographies, one of Joseph Conrad (whose father…
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Breaking News Photographer Who Documented Jewish Lower East Side, Dies at 98
Rebecca Lepkoff, a photographer who documented Jewish life on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, has died. Lepkoff, who grew up in a Jewish neighborhood there, died Sunday at 98. Her series of photographs showing the Lower East Side was taken in the 1940s and 1950s. Lepkoff lived a portion of the year in Vermont,…
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Food Nouveau Jewish Food Hits Streets of Manhattan
Workmen’s Circle poster advertising the Taste of Jewish Culture street fair // Facebook New York’s got so many hip new delis that it may be as easy to find gefilte fish and borscht as it was in 1892, when The Workmen’s Circle held its first meeting on the Lower East Side. So it’s no small…
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Food The Lower East Side Is Now Kosher-Less
Update: June 12th: It would appear that the close of Shalom Chai was temporary. And while the owner owes thousands to the landlord, the pizza shop is in fact open. More details coming soon. It’s over: The last kosher restaurant on the Lower East Side is gone. As if to highlight kosher’s tragic state downtown,…
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Opinion Shelly Silver’s Evil ‘Twin’
(JTA) — Evil twins make frequent appearances in the cheesier sorts of movies and television shows, yet tend to be less common in state politics. But not according New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. Silver has never lacked for chutzpah, but he appears to have taken it to Olympian heights with his most recent…
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Culture The Syrupy Tale of How Jews Invented Kedem and Modern America
Pour yourself a glass of wine — this is a story that needs a little extra time set aside. It’s a twisty tale of three centuries, and how improbable connections made New York City into the city it is today, and how difficult it is to keep moving forward without destroying what lies behind. Let’s begin then,…
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Breaking News 165-Year-Old Ex-Shul on Lower East Side Closed After Column Cracks Found
A former synagogue on the Lower East Side of Manhattan was evacuated after cracks were discovered in the building’s columns. The building, which was evacuated during a performance gala of the Angel Orensanz Foundation Center for the Arts, was closed indefinitely. Built in 1849, the Gothic Revival synagogue once served as the home for Congregation…
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Culture A Shooting After a Shvitz in a Lower East Side Bathhouse
1913 •100 years ago Shooting in the Shvitz Isaac Schwimmer, a civil engineer who lives on East 7th Street, was taking a shvitz in the Turkish baths on Third Street near Avenue A. Apparently overcome by the heat, Schwimmer fell asleep in the steam room. He awoke to find his diamond ring missing. Furious, he…
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Fast Forward Why neo-Nazis marched in Ohio this weekend, and almost every weekend in the US
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Opinion The group behind Project 2025 has a plan to protect Jews. It will do the opposite.
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Opinion Just about every interpretation of Trump’s narrow election victory is wrong
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News Texas schools want to add Queen Esther to the curriculum. Here’s why Jews (and many Christians) are opposed.
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Fast Forward Chabad rabbi killed in United Arab Emirates; Israel denounces ‘despicable antisemitic act’
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Fast Forward Ursula Haverbeck, infamous German Holocaust denier known as ‘Nazi grandma,’ dies at 96
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Fast Forward A Jewish museum in Tulsa held a funeral for remains of Holocaust victims it kept for years
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