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 Roman Polanski’s Dreyfus Film, Seen As Defense Against Rape Conviction, Wins Venice Award
Roman Polanski’s “An Officer and a Spy (J’Accuse),” the director and convicted child rapist’s film about the Dreyfus affair, has won a prestigious award from the Venice Film Festival. Reviews from the festival noted that, while the film was technically accomplished, Polanski had in interviews drawn direct parallels between his own case and that of…
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Culture The Long And Violent History Of Anti-Semitic ‘Disloyalty’ Charges
In 1807, Napoleon Bonaparte summoned French Jewish leaders for a conversation about loyalty. French Jews had gained the status of full citizens 16 years earlier. Napoleon wanted to understand how, as newly empowered civilians, they saw the world. So he asked them if they truly considered France their country, and Frenchmen their countrymen. In 1894,…
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Culture Ken Cuccinelli Isn’t The First Trump Official To Go After Emma Lazarus — Just The Latest
Updated on August 14: This article has been updated to reflect more recent comments made by USCIS acting director Ken Cuccinelli. Ken Cuccinelli, acting director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, caused a stir Tuesday morning by misquoting “The New Colossus,” the poem that famously occupies the base of the Statue of Liberty, while…
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Culture Remembering Hal Prince, Who Made Broadway Modern
There you are: Driving to work, doing the dishes, or — let’s be serious — in your shower, singing “Fiddler on the Roof,” “Phantom of the Opera,” “Cabaret,” or “West Side Story.” If you’re into Broadway deep cuts, maybe “Kiss of the Spider Woman.” Sure, the songs come from Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick; Andrew…
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Culture Q & A: On Primo Levi’s Centenary, Reflecting On A Writer Who Was ‘The Perfect Scientist’
Primo Levi was, by any measure, a remarkable man. The chemist and writer, born in Turin, Italy on July 31, 1919, is most famous in America for his memoirs of his experience during the Holocaust. And those memoirs, foremost among them “If This is a Man,” which surveys Levi’s time in the Italian resistance and…
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Culture At Philip Roth’s Estate Auction, Paying To Own A Piece Of Genius
Philip Roth had style, but he liked utilitarian things. He owned many lamps, all easily adjustable and fairly unpretty. His chairs were mostly comfortable and lived-in. He furnished his house with library tables of varying charm, and two radios that could kindly be described as aged. When he died at 85 on May 22, 2018,…
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Culture Maurice Sendak’s Designs For Opera And Ballet Are A Testament To Joy
Maurice Sendak had many reasons to be unhappy. He was born to Polish Jewish immigrants in Brooklyn in 1928, and his childhood was defined by the deaths of his extended family in the Holocaust, a loss that scarred him early and deep. He was a gay man who, sure his parents wouldn’t accept him if…
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Culture Eating Cake With Maira Kalman
When I met Maira Kalman at her apartment a year ago, I was in some upheaval. My boyfriend had ended our relationship. My apartment was becoming comically unlivable. (If you’ve never woken up to the sounds of a large rodent trapped in your ceiling, I don’t recommend it.) I’d spent months lying awake most nights…
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