
Talya Zax is the Forward’s opinion editor. Contact her at [email protected] or on Twitter, @TalyaZax.

Talya Zax is the Forward’s opinion editor. Contact her at [email protected] or on Twitter, @TalyaZax.
The title character of Anton Rubinstein’s opera “Demon,” appearing at Bard SummerScape through August 5, is an anomaly. He’s not really interested in sowing evil. He doesn’t yearn for heaven; he always found it boring. He’s profoundly skeptical of the unquestioning worship of God. He doesn’t care for the idea of divine love, convinced only…
The first performance of Anton Rubinstein’s opera “The Demon” at London’s Covent Garden was memorable — to say the least. A spurt of flame, a New York Times reporter reminisced in 1893, “burst out from the Demon’s den, and set the adjoining scenery on fire.” Rubinstein was conducting and helped put out the fire, an…
Rachel Kushner, Sally Rooney and Richard Powers are among the authors longlisted for the 2018 Man Booker Prize. The prize, given annually, will be awarded on October 16, following the announcement of a shortlist on September 20. Originally restricted to fiction from Commonwealth countries and Ireland, the prize recently attracted controversy after, starting in 2014,…
The word “complicit” has become so popular in the first years of the Trump administration that it can register as an empty gesture at a damning concept. Your tax dollars go to separating children from their parents at the border; you are complicit, and what does that mean? How could you change it? You, personally,…
Oy, readers. It has been such a week; the only thing to say is oy, and the only thing to do is make plans for the weekend for the sake of distraction. Read on for the best weekend events in New York City, Washington D.C., Chicago and Los Angeles, as well as the best weekend…
The Iraqi Jewish Archive, as the Forward explored in a recent series of articles, has significant symbolic meaning. To Iraqi Jews and their descendants, exiled from their home country starting in 1950, the archive, a trove of artifacts brought to the United States for restoration in 2003, represents the rich communal life and history they…
The Iraqi Jewish Archive, a trove of items from Iraq’s Jewish community that made its way to the United States for restoration, is at the center of a complex web of issues touching on the forced exodus of Middle Eastern Jews from their home countries, U.S. policy regarding those Jews’ claims to stolen property, the…
I was sick for my latest birthday, sniffly and feverish, yet I somehow found the wherewithal to force my gathered friends to watch the scene from “Fiddler on the Roof” in which the furious ghost of Frume Sarah rises from the grave. You know the one. Tevye, trying to convince his wife Golde to approve…
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