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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Forward 50 2018 Jamie Bernstein
Reflecting On Dad, His Legacy, Eccentricities And How He Lives On Growing up with Leonard Bernstein wasn’t always easy. The conductor and composer was brilliant and loving, but also controlling, inappropriate and so much larger than life that his presence could be suffocating. Jamie Bernstein, 66, his eldest daughter, gave powerful voice to the experience…
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Theater Folksbiene To Follow ‘Fiddler’ With Premiere Of Opera About The Rise Of The Nazis
Erich Rosenthal, a Jewish scholar, watched the rise of the Nazis from the United States. He’d managed to escape his native Germany, but his family wasn’t so lucky. Now his son, the composer Ted Rosenthal, is poised to give new voice to the tormented years his father spent praying for his family from afar. In…
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Theater ‘Heil Hitler!’ He Yelled During ‘Fiddler.’ The Audience Feared For Their Lives.
Lyn Levine, 26, heard a commotion from the balcony. But it was only when she heard a man shout “Go home, Nazi” that she got a clue what was happening. Someone had said something anti-Semitic, she realized. People were moving quickly out of the way. Faces showed surprise, confusion. “The first thing that went through…
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Culture In Russia, A Jewish Director’s Trial Marks A New Threat To Freedom
At the Cannes International Film Festival in May, Kirill Serebrennikov was everywhere. His nametag on a table at a press conference. His film “Leto” mentioned as a top contender for the Palme d’Or. His eyes looking out from square-frame glasses, printed on a paper bag the actress Franziska Petri wore over her head. On a…
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Culture Roald Dahl Denied Commemorative British Coin Over Anti-Semitism
Roald Dahl, who passed away in 1990, would have turned 100 in 2016. But the Royal Mint, which has a tradition of issuing commemorative coins for notable British figures’ significant anniversaries — recent among them Jane Austen and Mary Shelley — never introduced the author of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” “Fantastic Mr. Fox” and…
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Culture Why Pittsburgh Paper’s ‘Kaddish’ Headline Is So Meaningful
The course of history occasionally brings a front page that proves impossible to forget. The Chicago Tribune’s premature, incorrect declaration “Dewey Defeats Truman” on November 3, 1948; The New York Times’s “U.S. Attacked” headline on September 12, 2001; the ubiquitous “Nixon Resigns” headlines on August 9, 1974. For many, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s front page of…
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Culture When Chagall Battled For Russia’s Soul
When it was over and done with, perhaps the main thing that stood out about the Soviet Union was its success in restricting the character of its citizens. As Masha Gessen wrote in her 2016 book “The Future is History,” in every totalitarian state “The shaping of the New Man is the regime’s explicit project.”…
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Film & TV Jerome Robbins Was The Quintessential Jewish American Genius
On May 6, 1953, Jerome Robbins was front-page news in the Forward for an act that would haunt him for the rest of his life. An above-the-fold headline — published next to an unrelated photo of a handsome young harbor boss named Francis Kelly, who appeared to be wearing lipstick — read “Acclaimed Dancer Gives…
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