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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Culture Hillary Clinton’s Chief Strategist Has a Surprisingly Theatrical Jewish Past
Something theatrical is afoot in the Jewish wing of the Democratic party. In March, we learned that Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland — in case you’ve missed the breaking news, he’s still waiting for the Senate to acknowledge his existence — had tried his hand at theater reviewing while he was a student at Harvard….
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The Schmooze Bernie Sanders to Publish Post-Election Book
For those concerned that the progressive movement built by Bernie Sanders might lose steam in the wake of his endorsement of Hillary Clinton for president, take heart: the vociferous Vermontian is planning on keeping the movement going by hook, crook, or, well, book. Thomas Dunne publishers, an imprint of St. Martin’s Press, announced on Thursday…
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The Schmooze Jewish Authors On Longlist for First Novel Award
Some soon-to-be-familiar Jewish names cropped up on the Center for Fiction’s Longlist for its 2016 First Novel Prize, announced on Tuesday. The $10,000 prize, whose previous recipients include Junot Díaz for “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” and Marisha Pessl for “Special Topics in Calamity Physics,” is awarded to a book published between January…
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Culture 9 Jewish Facts About the Planet Jupiter
To the delight of space geeks worldwide, NASA’s spacecraft Juno has sent back its first images from Jupiter. While there’s a vaguely amusing linguistic case to be made that the planet’s name makes it the most Jewish of the spheres, here are some slightly less nebulous – space pun unavoidable – reasons to celebrate “Jew”-piter….
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Culture Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Anti-Trump Comments Spark Backlash
President Obama has, in his last months in office, been making a habit of the mic drop. (See his speech at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner and his recent Jimmy Fallon-aided slow jamming of the news.) Based on a recent New York Times interview, it seems Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is impressed by his style….
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Culture Cyber Warfare Is Real — Should We Blame the U.S. and Israel For Starting It?
In late 2009, something almost laughably scary started happening at the Natanz nuclear facility in Iran: centrifuges — slim cylinders containing powerful rotors used to enrich uranium — began exploding. It wasn’t clear why. Or how. The operating data for the impacted centrifuges gave the impression they were functioning at normal levels, and when technicians…
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Culture Agata Tuszyńska Knew She Was Jewish But Couldn’t Talk About It
A Family History of Fear By Agata Tuszyńska Translated by Charles Ruas Knopf, 400 pages, $27.95 ‘Truth is safer, always.” The Polish poet, biographer, and memoirist Agata Tuszyńska sat across from me in the living room of an expensively furnished apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, drinking black tea. It was a warm Monday morning,…
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Culture Meet Donald Trump’s Jewish Architect Who’s Now Helping Hillary Clinton
Between the lawsuit against Donald Trump’s eponymous “university,” reports that his performance as a real estate investor has been markedly subpar in comparison to that of his peers, and the bankruptcies declared by four of his hotels and casinos, the presidential candidate’s reputation as a businessman isn’t exactly intact. In a newly-released campaign video, Hillary…
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