Articles written collectively by the Forward’s staff.
Forward Staff
By Forward Staff
-
Culture Forward 50 | Eli Cohen: The rabbi trying to heal Crown Heights
Crown Heights, with its fraught history of black-Jewish tensions that erupted in riots 30 years ago, has this year seen a spike in violent attacks against the visibly Orthodox. Starting this summer, Rabbi Eli Cohen, executive director of the neighborhood’s Jewish community council, teamed up with a prominent black activist, Geoffrey Davis, to meet with…
-
Culture Carly Pildis: Zionist Feminist Activist
Carly Pildis, 34, has for several years been a forceful writer on Twitter and in the Jewish media (including Opinion articles in the Forward), addressing anti-Semitism on the left and right, and fighting for progressive Jews who don’t want to hide their support for Israel’s existence. In 2019, as controversies about anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism raged,…
-
Culture Forward 50 | Chaya Porus Palevsky: Lithuanian partisan hero
On display at the Museum of Jewish Heritage’s new Auschwitz exhibit is a hand-embroidered floral blouse Chaya Palevsky made for her older sister Rachel Porus, a nurse, who kept many people alive in the Švenčionys ghetto. When the family was put on a train, bound, they believed, for Kaunas, Chaya made a split-second decision to…
-
Culture Forward 50 | Adam Berman: The urban farmer
Adam Berman made made his first foray into community organizing as a teenager, by starting an environmental club at school. Years later, while directing a Jewish retreat center in Connecticut, he started a program around green living and called it Adamah, the Hebrew word for “earth.” In 2010, he moved to Berkeley and opened Urban…
-
Culture Forward 50 | Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman: Refugee, war hero, patriot
Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman may not be particularly telegenic. Of the witnesses called before the House Intelligence Committee in the impeachment inquiry of President Trump’s alleged quid pro quo with Ukraine, Vindman, 44, certainly could not be accused of bringing the pizzazz. That only made his testimony — of perceived abuses about which he could…
-
Culture Jamie Margolin: The Teenager Who Would Be President
Teenage activists are something of a phenomenon in recent years: David Hogg on guns, Greta Thunberg on climate change, Mari Copeny on the Flint water crisis. Then there is Margolin, who is 18 and spent the year appearing at dozens of conferences around the world, all while writing a book, passing her classes and applying…
-
Culture Joseph Cedar: The Director Of Complexity
The HBO miniseries “Our Boys” dramatized the story of the brutal 2014 murder of the Palestinian teenager Mohammed Abu Khdeir, which, following the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers, helped build momentum toward the 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict. The series was co-directed by Cedar, 51, an American-born Israeli filmmaker; Hagai Levi, an Israeli television creator;…
-
Culture Abby Stein: The Barrier Breaker
Abby Stein’s memoir “Becoming Eve,” about her life and transition, was released in November, but she had been clearing her throat for that text for years. After coming out as trans on her blog in 2015, Stein established a Trans Meet-Up with Eshel, a LGBTQ nonprofit for Orthodox Jews. This year, Stein, 28, was part…
Most Popular
- 1
Fast Forward Unarmed man who tackled Bondi Beach Hanukkah attacker identified as Ahmed al-Ahmed
- 2
Fast Forward First Puka Nacua, now Mookie Betts: Why do sports stars keep getting antisemitic around a Jewish streamer?
- 3
Fast Forward After MIT professor’s killing, Jewish influencers spread unverified antisemitism claim
- 4
Opinion I grew up believing Australia was the best place to be Jewish. This Hanukkah shooting forces a reckoning I do not want.
In Case You Missed It
-
Culture We tried to fix Hallmark’s Hanukkah problem. Here’s the movie we made instead
-
Fast Forward Holocaust survivor event features a Rob Reiner video address — recorded just weeks before his death
-
Fast Forward In Reykjavik, Hanukkah offers a chance for Iceland’s tiny, isolated Jewish community to come together
-
Opinion When my children decorate for Hanukkah, I don’t just see pride. I see pluralism in action.
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism