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 Three things Alice Walker gets dead wrong about anti-Semitism
Editor’s note: We’ve republished this piece, originally published on December 20, 2018, after Walker’s appearance this week on writer Cheryl Strayed’s podcast for The New York Times, “Sugar Calling,” created new outrage. Earlier this week, the internet issued a collective groan when Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker recommended a book by the anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist…
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Culture Join the Forward’s next book club — featuring Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Geraldine Brooks
We organized The Forward Book Club on a whim, hoping to give our readers, and ourselves, a sense of community in a time of distance. Our first book was “Bread Givers” by Anzia Yezierska. Over our month of conversations about that novel, our meetings became something we looked forward to every week, an opportunity to…
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Culture Coronavirus makes May Day a moment for radical action — and hope
On May 1, employees at several major companies, including Amazon, Whole Foods, Target and Instacart, will stage a one-day walkout. At the same time, tenants in cities across the United States will begin a rent strike, predicted to be one of the largest the country has ever seen. The workers’ concerns: Lack of adequate paid…
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Culture When Gloria Steinem and Phyllis Schlafly battled for the American soul
“Mrs. America” begins with a cake. It’s a fluffy, gorgeous dome of meringue, left isolated and static on the screen before being shuttled into a crowded political fundraiser. At the fundraiser, the wives of the local elite put on a fashion show; backstage, they chat unhappily about the threat of “women’s libbers.” That housewives-versus-libbers clash…
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Culture In Stephen Sondheim’s birthday concert, notes of a better, more human Broadway
Streaming live on YouTube, the concert started late, then stopped abruptly, started, stopped, then abruptly disappeared. All in all, the star-studded, highly hyped “Take Me to the World: A Sondheim 90th Birthday Celebration” finally got rolling an hour and 15 minutes after it was supposed to. In the meantime, would-be viewers anxious to watch Broadway…
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Culture Let’s talk about Andrew Cuomo’s oddly thirsty Yom HaShoah photo
In the public eye, the last two months have been something of a high point for New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. His clear, forceful daily briefings on the coronavirus crisis — accompanied by blunt, unintentionally hilarious homemade PowerPoints — have won him legions of new fans. New Yorkers, accustomed to viewing their elected officials with…
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News Hal Willner, 64, Music Producer On ‘Saturday Night Live’
NEW YORK (JTA) — Hal Willner might have been the most willfully strange person in show business. The music producer, who died April 7 at age 64 of complications of coronavirus, had a magic touch. He could get anyone to do anything: Tom Waits to sing an unrecognizable, railroad-rough version of “Heigh Ho” from Disney’s…
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Culture Daily distraction: Take an art course from MoMA
Welcome to your daily distraction, our recommendations for ways to stay engaged and entertained while we socially distance ourselves to combat the novel coronavirus outbreak. You can find our past recommendations here; many of the opportunities we’ve highlighted are ongoing. It’s the start of a new week. Many of us have now been practicing social…
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Film & TV The new ‘Superman’ is being called anti-Israel, but does that make it pro-Palestine?
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Fast Forward Tucker Carlson calls for stripping citizenship from Americans who served in the Israeli army
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Music ‘No matter what, I will always be a Jew.’ Billy Joel opens up about his family’s Holocaust history
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Culture She was my Hebrew school bully — and I finally learned what happened to her
In Case You Missed It
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Fast Forward Cuomo says key factor in his primary loss was Mamdani’s support from young, Jewish, and pro-Palestinian voters
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Fast Forward Elon Musk wants your kids to use his chatbot. The same one that praised Hitler.
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Fast Forward Nation’s largest teachers union rejects move to cut ties with ADL
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Culture In this Holocaust story, there are few words, no swastikas, no yellow stars — just movement, passion and empathy
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