Maia Efrem is the former research editor and assistant to the editor and was also responsible for the Forward’s annual Salary Survey. Previously she served as the editor of Blognik Beat, a blog written by students who emigrated from or have ties to the Former Soviet Union. Maia is a graduate of Hunter College and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.
Many little girls grow up on Disney princess cartoons. I grew up on Bollywood films, dancing to the Hindi music, the lyrics to which I had memorized by the time I was six. I was raised in the 1980s in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, and Bollywood’s charming wholesomeness was imported in droves. I’d…
Gal Beckerman, Forward’s opinion editor and author of “When They Come For Us We’ll Be Gone: The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry,” the defining book on Soviet Jewry, talks about meeting the refuseniks who attempted to hijack a plane and draw attention to the troubles of Russian Jews. What is life like for the…
The Chabad Russian Center of South Florida announced plans to open a $7.7 million Jewish Russian community house in Isles Beach, Fla., for the 20,000 Russian Jews living in the area. The center will offer members educational and social programming services. Actress and comedienne Janeane Garofalo plays a Russian Jewish mother in “Russian Transport”, a…
In reporting the American Jewish story, the Forward has come to appreciate the unique complexity and distinctive identity of the Russian-speaking Jewish community. That is why we are excited to partner with Genesis Philanthropy Group to launch Blognik Beat, which we hope will be a new home for conversation among young Jewish writers who have…
The Forward’s third annual survey of 76 national Jewish organizations paints a picture of communal stagnation in gender equality, as the number of women in leadership roles remains at the same low level, and the gap between male and female salaries has grown even larger. Despite the dismal economy, half of the leaders in the…
Two students at a Connecticut yeshiva were killed and two others injured when their van crashed and rolled down an embankment, school officials and police said. Eli Shonbron, 16, and Dani King, 15, both of Brooklyn, died in the crash on Interstate 84 near the New York-Connecticut border just after midnight, state police said. “Dani…
When the USS Dorchester, a U.S. Army troop ship carrying 900 soldiers and civilians, was attacked by the Germans in 1943, a rabbi, a Catholic priest and two Protestant ministers helped soldiers onto lifeboats and handed out life jackets, giving away their own as the ship sank off the coast of Greenland. The four chaplains…
Examining the grants program provides a window into Jewish organizational and political power. It is this power that allowed a small community to create and maintain a government program tailored specifically for its needs and catering almost exclusively to its members
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