A Thinking Person’s Guide to The Holocaust

Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
Tell us what you think are the most important books, films, sculptures, pieces of music or any other cultural artifact produced about the Holocaust. And why they are vital. With the help of Paula Hyman (professor of Modern Jewish History at Yale), Joanne Rudof (Archivist of the Fortunoff Video Archive at Yale), Lawrence Langer (author of National Book Critics Circle award-winning, “Holocaust Testimonies: The Ruins of Memory”) and Michael Berenbaum (professor of Jewish Studies at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles) among others, we will choose the best. And then, for Yom Hashoah, we will print 10 unmissable ones. Perhaps you think it is “Schindler’s List,” “Maus,” “Survival in Auschwitz,” a George Segal sculpture or one of the histories written by Raul Hilberg or Lucy Dawidowicz.
[The article that came from this call for suggestions can be found at “The Thinking Person’s Guide to the Holocaust”]
Please send your suggestions before Pesach 2011, with a 50-word explanation to [email protected].
Originally this call for suggestions was titled “An Intelligent Jew’s Guide to The Holocaust?” with a nod to George Bernard Shaw’s classic “The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism” and Tony Kushner’s contemporary “The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism With a Key to the Scriptures.” As the article was forwarded on and allusions were lost we amended the title to be more prosaic and accurate.
Why I became the Forward’s Editor-in-Chief
You are surely a friend of the Forward if you’re reading this. And so it’s with excitement and awe — of all that the Forward is, was, and will be — that I introduce myself to you as the Forward’s newest editor-in-chief.
And what a time to step into the leadership of this storied Jewish institution! For 129 years, the Forward has shaped and told the American Jewish story. I’m stepping in at an intense time for Jews the world over. We urgently need the Forward’s courageous, unflinching journalism — not only as a source of reliable information, but to provide inspiration, healing and hope.
