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 At Historic Synagogue, A Hopeful Meditation On Loss Takes Flight
The aluminum chairs — off-kilter and whimsically rugged, as if Chagall had ventured into furniture-making — soar above the women’s balcony, held aloft by two golden birds. Sunlight, softened through stained glass, bounces off the pair’s upturned legs. The sculpture, by Kiki Smith, a renowned sculptor and printmaker, is called “Homecoming.” It’s easy to think,…
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Culture Lev Dodin, One Of Russia’s Great Directors, Confronts A Loveless World
I have been thinking, recently, about the prevalence of female suicide in literature. It started when I saw Simon Stone’s update of Federico García Lorca’s play “Yerma,” in which the unnamed main character kills herself, driven mad by her inability to conceive a child. I was troubled by the choice; in the original “Yerma,” the…
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The Schmooze Movie News: Woody Allen Tactless On #MeToo, Why Jews Didn’t Play Jews During Hollywood’s Golden Age
Greetings, movie fans! Last week saw the Forward’s culture desk unusually understaffed, and therefore, a melancholic lack of movie news. This week, to make up for the omission, we have two weeks’s worth of movie news to summarize: The good, the bad, the very strange and more. Read on. 1) Alison Klayman spoke about her…
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The Schmooze ‘Sex And The City’ At 20, Seymour Hersh’s ‘Reporter’ And More To Read, Watch And Do This Weekend
Ah, the first week of June: Roses are out, yet New Yorkers inexplicably still need to wear jackets to leave their apartments; the Tony Awards are nearly upon us; the NBA Finals are disappointingly turning into the rout we all miserably anticipated; summer, it appears, is only half-enthusiastic about making an appearance in 2018. Tough…
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Culture Ilana Kurshan Wins Sami Rohr Prize For ‘If All The Seas Were Ink’
Ilana Kurshan’s “If All the Seas Were Ink: A Memoir” has won the 2018 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature. “If All the Seas Were Ink” recounts the years in which Kurshan, recovering from the dissolution of her first marriage at age 27, undertook the project of reading the entire Talmud, one page per day….
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Culture 15 Can’t-Miss Summer Events Starting With Yiddish ‘Fiddler’
My best memories of summer are of the arts: Catching a B.B. King concert in a Denver August downpour; waiting in the humid heat for a free ticket to “My Fair Lady” at the Muny in St. Louis; spreading a jacket on the beach at Coney Island and watching the riveting and under-recognized “Crown Heights”…
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The Schmooze Remembering Philip Roth, ‘Fauda’ And More To Read, Watch And Do This Weekend
Dear readers, it’s Memorial Day weekend, and as we remember those who have given their lives for our country, we have also earned a bit of rest. If your version of rest includes getting out and about to do cultural things, by all means do so. Read on for our weekend culture recommendations in New…
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Culture Leonard Bernstein, Lea DeLaria, A Carrot And A Quest For Genius
You know you are at a gala in New York if most every woman in attendance, yourself included, is wearing black. In another city, on another occasion, the solemn palette might register as funerary. At a gala celebrating the centenary of Leonard Bernstein, composer, conductor and reigning doyen of a certain era of New York…
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