Talya Zax is the Forward’s opinion editor. Contact her at [email protected] or on Twitter, @TalyaZax.
Talya ZaxOpinion Editor
By Talya Zax
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The Schmooze SNL’s Election Special, Art Spiegelman In Chicago, And 5 Other Things To Read, Watch And Do This Weekend
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…
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Culture “First Jewish Americans” Were Anxious About Intermarriage, Assimilation — Just Like Us
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…
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Culture How We Tracked Down the Best Yiddish Stories of the Past Century — and More
‘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:…
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The Schmooze On New #HanukkahStamps, Oil Burns Forever
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…
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The Schmooze Happy 125th Birthday, Fanny Brice!
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…
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Culture Why Zadie Smith Thinks Philip Roth, and Alexander Portnoy, Changed The World
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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Culture Dallas Holocaust Museum To Relocate, Expand Mission
The Dallas Holocaust Museum/Center For Education and Tolerance today announced plans to move to a new, expanded site that will quadruple the museum’s exhibition space. The museum also plans to reorient its mission, changing its name to the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum. In a press release, Museum President and CEO Mary Pat Higgins…
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Culture Paula Vogel’s ‘Indecent’ Heading To Broadway
Fans of Paula Vogel, Yiddish Theater, and equality in the arts rejoice: Vogel’s play “Indecent,” which made its New York debut off-Broadway at the Vineyard Theater last April, will be hitting Broadway this coming spring. On Wednesday, producers Daryl Roth, Elizabeth Ireland McCann and Cody Lassen announced that, starting in April 2017, “Indecent,” which Vogel…
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Fast Forward In Tenafly, NJ, a crowd awaits the release of local son Edan Alexander from Hamas captivity
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