
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.
Today, the character of Wonder Woman – she of the super strength, lasso, and controversial but iconic red bustier – is being initiated as a United Nations Honorary Ambassador for the Empowerment of Women And Girls. When announced earlier this month, the honor drew ire from some, especially as it followed close on the failure…
Depending on where you are, it’s either fall or supposed to be. (New York has had a week of balmy temperatures, with turning leaves the only hint of autumn.) Oscar-contending films are being released, television shows are embarking on new seasons, and as evenings descend earlier, books are beckoning from the shelves. What better time…
It’s not a surprise to most women that a gender-based wage gap exists, but it can be a shock to learn just how pervasive and enormous it can be. Comedian Chelsea Handler took that subject on in Wednesday’s installment of her Netflix series “Chelsea.” Hosting director Ava DuVernay, actresses Hilary Swank and Connie Britton, and…
In the aftermath of the release of the “Trump Tape” — for those under a political rock that’s the leaked 2005 recording of Donald Trump, on a hot mic, bragging about sexually assaulting women— clips of Trump making sexual claims on Howard Stern’s radio show have exacerbated public outrage. Those claims include Trump’s declaration that…
This past Sunday, the Italian journalist Claudio Gatti published an investigation into the “true identity” of novelist Elena Ferrante in the New York Review of Books, as well as outlets in France, Italy, and Germany. Based on financial and real estate records, he concluded that Ferrante was actually a Rome-based translator whose Jewish mother survived…
If you asked why National Poetry Day was important, the great Jewish American poet Howard Nemerov would refer you – perhaps politely, perhaps not – to the world outside. In the brief poem “Because You Asked About the Line Between Prose and Poetry,” he positions his readers in a scene in which rain turns to…
Cooler mornings; stray, amber-tinged leaves drifting romantically toward the sidewalk; a host of newspaper cartoons mocking an imminent flood of pumpkin-spiced baked goods and beverages — it must be fall! Call us biased, but we’ve always felt that the best way to celebrate autumn’s coziness is to curl up with a good book. Luckily, some…
On a recent summer Thursday, the cramped basement performance space of Brooklyn’s Union Hall filled with groups of friends, couples on dates, and a few loners who gave the impression they were there every night. It was about the crowd you’d expect at a night of standup comedy, which New Yorker cartoonist Emily Flake, as…
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