
Talya Zax is the Forward’s opinion editor. Contact her at [email protected] or on Twitter, @TalyaZax.
Talya Zax is the Forward’s opinion editor. Contact her at [email protected] or on Twitter, @TalyaZax.
At the end of an election filled with divisiveness, Yosef Rapaport didn’t know what to expect when he tweeted that he had dedicated his vote to the American Muslim soldier Captain Humayun Khan — the American Muslim soldier killed in combat whose father Khizr spoke movingly about his sacrifice at the Democratic National Convention. That…
This morning, Lin-Manuel Miranda announced his long-promised “Hamilton Mixtape” is available to preorder, and will be out December 2nd. It will include new takes on songs from “Hamilton” by a diverse array of artists, as well as previously-unheard material. And one of its songs — “Dear Theodosia” — will be performed by beloved Jewish songstress…
This week we start sharing events outside of New York as part of our normal roster; festivals of arts and ideas in Chicago and Washington, D.C. are up first. There’s a slew of new books to tempt you, regardless of what you’re craving – history, science fiction, some hearty Yiddish humor – and a few…
‘Jews say that if you change where you live you’ll change your luck, but is America really that different?” That’s the first line of an excerpt from Abraham Cahan’s “The Additional Soul,” a story that, translated to English from Yiddish by Jordan Kutzik, appears in the new anthology, “Have I Got a Story For You:…
In 1742 Phila Levy-Franks, the daughter of a well-off family in New York’s growing Jewish community, secretly married the Huguenot Oliver de Lancey. Her mother, Abigail, who had immigrated to the United States from England in 1695, went into mourning and never spoke to her again. It might be harder, now, to find Jewish parents…
Hanukkah might not start for nearly another two months, but for mail enthusiasts, it’s come early. At a ceremony today in Boca Raton, the United States Postal Service unveiled a brand new Hanukkah-themed Forever stamp. Yes, folks, the Hanukkahstamp — USPS’s name, not ours — is here to stay. The stamp features a fully-lit Hanukiah…
Fanny Brice, the legendary comedienne and songstress immortalized by Barbra Streisand in the musical and film “Funny Girl,” would have been 125 years old today. Brice, born Fania Borach on the Lower East Side’s Forsythe Street, captured hearts as a star member of “The Ziegfeld Follies,” the character of Baby Snooks on the radio, and…
Who is Philip Roth? Most of us agree on the known particulars: he’s a novelist (obviously), a Jew, a Newark native. Depending on who you ask, he is also a pervert, a misogynist, a narcissist, a chauvinist, and/or a self-hating Jew. (I got that list from quickly Googling “most frequent criticisms of Philip Roth;” I…
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