In this week’s Reporters’ Roundtable podcast, host Josh Nathan-Kazis speaks with editor Jane Eisner, news editor Larry Cohler-Esses and staff writer Gal Beckerman about the American construction company, Caterpillar, and its role in providing Israel with bulldozers that have been used to destroy Palestinian homes. The panel also discusses the controversial conversion bill that is stalled in the Knesset, and why the legislation has sounded alarms in the Diaspora.Read More
This week, Forward contributors Paul Buhle and Steve Dalachinsky speak with Josh Nathan-Kazis, host of the Reporters’ Roundtable, about comic book artist and graphic novelist Harvey Pekar, and about Bohemian artist Tuli Kupferberg of the rock group The Fugs. Buhle and Dalichinsky share their personal recollections of Pekar and Kupferberg, both of whom died on July 12. The panelists also discuss the common threads shared by both artists: peacenick politics and knack for interpreting pop culture.Read More
A new study on intermarriage that upends long-held notions about how to engage the children of intermarried couples is the subject of this week’s Reporters’ Roundtable. Reporter Josh Nathan-Kazis speaks with staff writer Gal Beckerman and senior columnist J.J. Goldberg about the tenor of the current conversation on intermarriage, in comparison to that of years and decades past, and the panel discusses how Jewish movements are dealing with issues of rabbinic ordination, marriage and burial of those in interfaith relationships.Read More
In the second installment of our women’s roundtable podcast, the Forward’s web editor Gabrielle Birkner speaks with Forward editor Jane Eisner, Lilith editor Susan Weidman Schneider and Lilith associate editor Sonia Isard about a proposed reality show about self-proclaimed Jewish American Princesses, the evolution of the game of mah jongg, the high demand for Jewish donor eggs and the first crisis pregnancy center geared toward Jewish women. The editors also recall the moment they first knew they were feminists.Read More
In advance of the July 6 talks between President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, reporter Josh Nathan-Kazis speaks with news editor Larry Cohler-Esses and staff writer Nathan Guttman about the state of U.S.-Israel relations. They discuss the Obama administration’s role in Israel’s decision to ease the Gaza blockade, Ambassador Michael Oren’s recent comments about the changing Israel-American relationship, and whether Defense Minister Ehud Barak or Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman wields more power on the international stage.Read More
The mass protests of Haredim in Jerusalem and elsewhere in Israel, and the 27-year prison sentence handed down to former Agriprocessors’ CEO Sholom Rubashkin are the subjects of this week’s Reporters’ Roundtable. Reporter Josh Nathan-Kazis speaks with editor Jane Eisner and staff writer Gal Beckerman about the Ashkenazim-Sephardim desegregation case that prompted the Israeli protests, and a recent rally in Brooklyn that brought together various Hasidic sects in support of Rubashkin.Read More
This week on the Forward Reporters’ Roundtable, reporter Josh Nathan-Kazis sits down with staff writer Gal Beckerman and arts and culture editor Dan Friedman to discuss the anniversary of an important milestone in the Soviet Jewry movement, and the efforts in Israel to rename Turkish coffee in the wake of the flotilla debacle.Read More