The Commemorative Issue
This month is set to be a historic one for the Forward. It is, of course, our 110th anniversary — cause enough for celebration. But we are marking this milestone in a uniquely symbolic way: Rather than simply looking back at our first century, we are inaugurating several projects that will bring us, thrillingly, into our second.
The first is ForwardBooks, a series we will be putting out in conjunction with the venerable publishing house W.W. Norton. Our maiden title, in bookstores this month, is “A Living Lens: Photographs of Jewish Life From the Pages of the Forward,” put together by Alana Newhouse, our arts and culture editor.
The book, which was culled from our 110-year-old photographic archives, features classic photographs of the sort one might already associate with the Forward — Lower East Side pushcarts, Yiddish theater, labor rallies Ρ along with gems no one would expect: Harry Truman’s haberdashery, Carpathian mountain musicians, Mussolini’s Jewish portraitist and more. We hope it offers the kind of complicated, nuanced portrait of Jewish life from the late 19th century through the early 21st — from far-flung Diaspora communities and British-ruled Palestine to the Holocaust, the Soviet Jewry movement, and the emergence of the suburban Jewish middle class; from Fiorello LaGuardia and Fanny Brice to Barbra Streisand, David Ben-Gurion, Woody Allen and Madonna — that regular readers will recognize as vintage Forward, and new ones will find pleasantly surprising.
Readers will be walked through these 100-plus years with trenchant essays by some of today’s leading intellectuals and historians, including legendary New York writer Pete Hamill; Leon Wieseltier, literary editor of The New Republic; J. Hoberman, the film editor of the Village Voice; renowned sportswriter Roger Kahn; Deborah E. Lipstadt, historian and author of “Denying the Holocaust,” and more. For more information about the book, including a slideshow and information about purchasing, please visit www.forward.com/book.
In addition, and to our great delight, the Museum of the City of New York will be mounting a sister exhibit — which will open on April 22, exactly 110 years to the day since the very first issue of the Forward hit the streets. We hope to see you there.
And finally, since our readers are no longer limited to New York, we won’t be either. Beginning at the end of this month, we will be on a national tour in support of the book. Listed below are the first stops we have planned. New ones are added every day, though, so check our Web site for updates.
April 23, 2007
New York:
Exhibit opens at the Museum of the City of New York
http://www.mcny.orgApril 24, 2007
Los Angeles:
The Writer’s Bloc
http://www.writersblocpresents.com/events/events.htmApril 30, 2007
New York:
Cooper Union
Alana Newhouse in conversation with Pete Hamill
http://www.cooper.edu/month.htmlMay 10, 2007
Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard Coop Bookstore
http://harvard.bkstore.comMay 14, 2007
Coral Gables, Fla.:
Books & BooksMay 15, 2007
Fort Lauderdale:
Tamarac Branch Library
http://www.broward.org/library/branch_ta.htmMay 31, 2007
New York:
Tenement Museum
http://www.tenement.orgJune 7, 2007
Philadelphia:
Congregation Keneseth Israel
http://www.kenesethisrael.org/June 10, 2007
Washington, D.C.:
Politics & Prose bookstore
http://www.politics-prose.com/
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