
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.
As has been the case for two years in a row now, exactly one of our pop culture predictions for 2017 turned out to be right. Unfortunately, it began with the words “Lena Dunham will pen a well-intentioned but tone deaf open letter to someone or another,” and yes, that turned out even worse than…
Broadway favorite “Fiddler on the Roof” began life as a Sholem Aleichem story, penned in its author’s native Yiddish. The show will return to that language in summer 2018, in a production by the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene. As The New York Times’s Sopan Deb reported, Sheldon Harnick, the much-acclaimed lyricist of “Fiddler on the…
2017 has, collectively, been few people’s ideas of a fun year. Still, it’s welcomed a wealth of excellent journalism. While we’ve previously celebrated work from other outlets, the Forward’s staff has also chosen our own most exceptional work from this year — our 120th in business. My picks include Sam Kestenbaum’s deeply reported “How This…
One of New York City’s most revered art house movie theaters, Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, has announced that it will close in January 2018. The theater, founded, co-owned and operated by Dan and Toby Talbot, has been open since 1981. As The Hollywood Reporter’s Gregg Kilday reported, Ewnetu Admassu, the theater’s general manager, said the cinema…
Happy Hanukkah! To those who feel the best present possible would be a new, apparently very good “Star Wars” film: Mazel tov. To those who are less keen on the Force: You’ve got plenty of other options with which to celebrate. Read on for the best things to read, watch and do this weekend in…
By now, the question is familiar: How should those who distribute and consume art deal with the artistic legacy of someone accused of sexual harassment and assault? And next: How should that calculation change if that person created their art through collaboration with others, who are presumably innocent of their colleague’s alleged crimes? That question…
I will be the last person to argue that Hanukkah’s musical heritage is one of particular depth; we sing the same few songs every year, they’re heartwarming if not exciting, and that’s great. Yet even I must wonder: How did Spotify get its Hanukkah playlist so egregiously wrong? Only six of its 46 songs were…
The shortlist for the 2018 Sapir Prize, often considered Israel’s top literary award, includes works by past winners Shimon Adaf and Noa Yedlin. Adaf’s novel “Mox Nox” won the award for works published in 2012, and Yedlin’s novel “House Arrest” won for those published the following year. Beyond Adaf, shortlisted for his book “Tolle Lege,”…
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