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 Holocaust Memorial Museum Receives Donation of Blue Card Collection
The Blue Card, a nonprofit that provides financial assistance to Holocaust survivors, has donated a substantial collection of its records and documents to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The collection’s contents date to shortly after The Blue Card’s establishment in the United States in 1939. (The Blue Card was originally founded in Germany in…
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The Schmooze The Secret Jewish History of Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong, the late, great, gravel-toned jazz genius, would have been 115 today. From his childhood, the legendary singer, trumpeter, composer and actor, who wore a Star of David for much of his life, was personally and professionally shaped by a number of rich connections with Jews. Most significant among them were those he had…
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The Schmooze Birthday Boy Tony Bennett Has a Jewish Daughter
For many, Tony Bennett – the singer whose standards, from “Fly Me to the Moon” to “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” are near-universal – has always felt a little bit like family. Today, as the world celebrates Bennett’s 90th birthday, Jews have an extra reason to rejoice: for us, he almost is. That…
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The Schmooze Colson Whitehead’s New Novel is Oprah’s Book Club Pick
Colson Whitehead’s new novel “The Underground Railroad” was announced earlier today as the next Oprah’s Book Club pick. It’s the Club’s first book since February 2015, which featured Cynthia Bond’s “Ruby.” While Whitehead isn’t Jewish, it seems possible the New York-born author has taken the famous Lenny Bruce declaration that “If you live in New…
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The Schmooze “Kimmy Schimdt” Star Ellie Kemper Gives Birth to First Son
As we’ve learned from the title sequence of “The Unbreakable Kimmy Schimdt,” females are strong as hell. Living through fifteen years as a kidnap victim in a bunker is one way to prove that; giving birth, as Kemper recently did, is another. Kemper and her husband Michael Koman have kept quiet on the subject of…
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The Schmooze Meet the Jewish Producer Behind “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child”
Since the first Harry Potter novel was released in 1997 – 1998, in the United States – July 31st has gained a reputation as a somewhat magical day: it’s the boy wizard’s birthday, as well as that of his creator, J.K. Rowling. With the official opening of the London play “Harry Potter and the Cursed…
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Culture The Lessons They Didn’t Teach Me on Birthright
On the morning of November 25, 2014, broken windows lined St. Louis’s South Grand Boulevard. The previous night, the thriving commercial stretch next to Tower Grove Park had become a site for protests over the decision of a grand jury not to indict the white Ferguson, Missouri, police officer Darren Wilson for the August 9…
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Culture In Globe’s ‘Merchant of Venice,’ Shylock is The Victim
Last Saturday, roughly halfway through the first act of the Globe Theatre’s “The Merchant of Venice” at this year’s Lincoln Center Festival, your correspondent could be found, much to her astonishment, on the stage. She was there at the behest of Launcelot, played by Stefan Adegbola, Shylock’s comically rebellious servant. Indulging an internal debate over…
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