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 Remembering Anita Brookner, “Mistress of Gloom”
“Dr. Weiss, at forty,” Anita Brookner wrote, “knew that her life had been ruined by literature.” The point she was aiming to make, through that first line of her first novel — published as “A Start in Life” in England and “The Debut” in America — was one she would return to frequently in her…
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The Schmooze 3 Reasons Ted Cruz Should Actually Call for Ban on ‘Satanic’ Tritone
Sadly, today’s report that Ted Cruz has issued a call to ban the tritone — in music theory terms, the musical interval of augmented fourth or diminished fifth, and in conspiracy theorist terms, the dangerously alluring sound of the devil — is satirical. (Importantly, it was issued by the website Submediant, which is a satirical…
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The Schmooze How a Jewish Artist Created One of the Best Places To Observe Lent
Apparently it is Lent and has been since February 10th. In The Guardian’s somewhat belated move to honor this period – or, perhaps, a “we’re nearly there, don’t lose your focus” bit of motivation – this past weekend that paper’s “Christianity” section published an intercontinental list of spaces, holy for various reasons, likely to inspire…
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Culture Maya Plisetskaya’s Spirit Dances On
As Russia’s Mariinsky Ballet prepared for the first performance of its brief residency at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, a gale-battered audience made its way to the doors. Speaking a mix of Russian and English and clad in an inordinate amount of fur, they came to pay homage to one of Russia’s premier ballet companies,…
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Culture Zionist Dreams and Realities Collide in New Documentary
“How do you reform yourself,” the playwright Motti Lerner asks, “after you’ve been broken?” That’s the first question posed in Joseph Dorman and Oren Rudavsky’s new documentary “Colliding Dreams.” Lerner is talking about the Hebrew word tikkun, which translates roughly to “rectification” and signifies an ancient Jewish focus on the reparation of the world. It’s…
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The Schmooze 5 Most-Read Jewish Women Authors on Campus
If you grappled with Gertrude Stein’s circular, free- flowing, language in college — “If Napoleon if I told him if I told him if Napoleon” – it turns out you’re not alone. In a recent analysis by TIME of the women authors most frequently read on college campuses, Stein showed up alongside some other familiar…
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The Schmooze Calatrava’s Matrix-Like New York Transit Hub Fails To Inspire
Five months ago, as I left work on my first day at the Forward and my third day as a New Yorker, I caught a glimpse of the World Trade Center Transportation Hub’s spiny white exterior. “That,” I thought, gleefully, “looks like a New York type of thing.” Indeed. Unfortunately, it is probably not a…
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Culture This Is Where Jewish American Art Began
While perhaps not a truth universally acknowledged, it is an outcome reasonably anticipated that if a museum holds opening-day festivities for a new exhibit on Valentine’s Day and the thermometer outside registers a cool 3 degrees, it is unlikely to attract many visitors. Not so for the Princeton Art Museum, which celebrated the opening of…
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