Chana Pollack is the Forward’s archivist. Contact her at [email protected].
Chana PollackArchivist
By Chana Pollack
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Archive ‘Cattle grazed among the bones of our sacred martyrs’: Covering Babyn Yar through the decades
It took two years for the Forward to first cover the 1941 massacre at Babyn Yar, a ravine in Ukraine, where the Nazis massacred more than 33,000 Jews over two days. The 1943 article came after the nearby city of Kyiv was liberated by the Red Army. That feature piece by Avrom Leyb Hendin —…
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Archive ‘It’s so easy to lose touch’: Recovering the history of David Duchovny’s grandfather, a Yiddish writer
Welcome to Ask the Archivist, where Chana Pollack, the Forward’s archivist for the last 21 years, hunts down some mystery from our 125-year history. We can’t promise we’ll find exactly what you seek. But unearthing something amazing along the way — a story to make you laugh, cry or wish you could just speak to…
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Archive Timeline | How the Forward covered LGBTQ history
If an American reader had glanced casually at the front page of the Forward on May 7, 1933, they would have had no idea that one of the most pivotal events of the early Nazi regime had occurred the day before. No, it wasn’t the decision of Adolf Hitler’s Justice Department to allow for the…
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Archive We’re here, we’re queer, we’re Yiddish: LGBTQ stories, and silences, in the Forward archives
It’s traditional for the gay community to gather for brunch before a Pride march during Pride month, or nachas khoydesh in Yiddish. Today, we propose instead a forshpayz, an appetizer-sized portion of queer archival Forverts history — rare treasures celebrating LGBTQ dignity, visibility and equality: our first archival Pride march back in time. For me,…
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Archive When the Forward was in the vaccine business
In April of 1947, readers of this publication flocked en masse to our building at 175 E. Broadway, rolled up their sleeves, and got stuck with a vaccine. The scene, replete with bespectacled gents, women in house dresses and young children, was part of something bigger: a rapid, mass vaccination against smallpox. By the time…
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Yiddish World Biden’s Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s zeyde was noted Yiddish writer
Read this article in Yiddish. Sure, you might have known that Antony Blinken, President-elect Joe Biden’s selection for U.S. Secretary of State, has a band — but did you know that his great-grandfather, Meir Blinken, was a Yiddish writer? The Ukraine-born elder Blinken, whose Yiddish nom de plume was B. Mayer and who was buried…
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Archive Eleanor Roosevelt’s close knish encounter of the Forward kind
The Forward is one of 57 libraries, museums and city agencies, contributing to a new app called Urban Archive, helping make historical materials engaging and accessible. This week, bring you a look at First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Roosevelt was an international figure but much of her life and work happened in New York City. For…
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Archive The Forward’s news (and Jews) on the Bowery
The Forward is one of 57 libraries, museums and city agencies, contributing to a new app called Urban Archive, helping make historical materials engaging and accessible. This week, we look at The Forward’s coverage of the Great Depression and New York’s Bowery district. As a socialist paper, The Forward covered the plight of the poor…
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