Articles written collectively by the Forward’s staff.
Forward Staff
By Forward Staff
-
Culture Adeena Sussman: Chef Of The Modern Middle East
In the U.S. it’s fairly easy to think you know all there is to know about Israeli cuisine. It’s all about hummus and falafel, right? With “Sababa: Fresh, Sunny Flavors from My Israeli Kitchen,” Adeena Sussman, 48, became the latest in a line of cookbook authors — think Yotam Ottolenghi and Michael Solomonov — to…
-
Culture Forward 50 | Elliot Kukla: Pastor for the planet
Rabbi Elliot Kukla, 45, has always lived and worked with one foot in the future. In 2006, after co-founding TransTorah, he became the first openly transgender rabbi ordained by a recognized Jewish movement (Reform). Today, as a rabbi at San Francisco’s Bay Area Jewish Healing Center, he provides spiritual care around grieving, illness and dying….
-
Culture Dana Czapnik: New York Chronicler
Some people’s heroism can be seen in charitable works and mitzvot. Others favor the more quiet and reflective mitzvah — like writing a Great American Novel. Czapnik, 40, the New York-based granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, blazed onto the scene this year, demonstrating the kind of rare natural prowess usually ascribed to athletes — like teen basketball…
-
Culture Jordana Horn & Shannon Sarna: Mothers Of The Year
This year, Jordana Horn and Shannon Sarna started a Kveller podcast, “Call Your Mother,” to connect with fellow Jewish mothers. With nine — yes, nine! — children between them, Jordana, a journalist and lawyer, and Shannon, an author and editor of The Nosher, share the joys and chaos of life and parenting. The duo has…
-
Culture Forward 50 | Jerry Nadler: Impeacher-in-Chief (No. 2)
Born in Brooklyn, Rep. Jerry Nadler, 72, is a Democrat who has represented the most Jewish Congressional district in the United States for 27 years, and he does it in a profoundly Jewish way. Nadler attended Crown Heights Yeshiva and Stuyvesant High School, and maintains deep ties all over the Jewish community. Now, as chairman…
-
Culture Irena Klepfisz: Keeper of the Bundist Flame
When an overflow crowd in September came to hear a panel at YIVO discuss the legacy of the Bund, Irena Klepfisz, 78, was the event’s elder-stateswoman. A trailblazing lesbian poet, intellectual and political activist whose work is deeply informed by the movement’s socialist values, she serves as a bridge between the pre-war Bund of her…
-
Culture Forward 50 | Brett Lockspeiser: The Torah technologist
What is ancient is new again. That’s part of the philosophy behind Brett Lockspeiser’s Sefaria app, a free digital library of Jewish texts in English and Hebrew. A secular Jew with no formal Jewish education, Lockspeiser, 37, is the project’s chief engineer behind the project. He was nominated for the Forward 50 by a reader…
-
Culture Analia Bortz: Scholar Of The Human
Two weeks into medical school at the University of Buenos Aires, Analia Bortz realized she wanted to be a rabbi. “I went to the dean and said, ‘We’re learning about the liver, the heart and the lymph nodes. When do we learn about the human?’” she said. The dean told her that the big questions…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
Opinion It’s time for the pro-Palestinian movement to make a radical change
- 2
News Should synagogues remove the Israeli flag from bimahs now? How a New York shul made the decision
- 3
News An Israeli restaurant chain said it closed due to boycotts. Protesters are celebrating.
- 4
Film & TV What the new season of ‘Nobody Wants This’ gets right — and very wrong — about Judaism
In Case You Missed It
-
Culture Leonard Bernstein wrote a love song to the White House; now it’s an elegy
-
Fast Forward As 1000+ rabbis sign anti-Mamdani letter, others decry mounting ‘red lines’ in Jewish communities
-
News Mamdani has created ‘great fear,’ and Jewish voters are ‘more motivated than I have ever seen,’ Cuomo says
-
Fast Forward The World War II origins of the White House East Wing, now demolished
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
