Talya Zax is the Forward’s opinion editor. Contact her at [email protected] or on Twitter, @TalyaZax.
Talya ZaxOpinion Editor
By Talya Zax
-
Culture Is This 23-Year-Old Brooklyn Native Opera’s Next Great Star?
Countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen, at 23 years old, might be one of opera’s most promising stars. He’s lined up engagements for the next few years, appearing next with Virginia’s Wolf Trap Opera and the Houston Grand Opera Studio. His subsequent commitments are currently under wraps. He was just named one of the winners of the…
-
Culture Is Michael Chabon A Better Writer Because He Doesn’t Use A Lot Of Exclamation Points???!!!
At least according to the forces behind the National Jewish Book Awards, Michael Chabon is something of an accomplished writer. But what, exactly, makes him so good? A new analysis by statistician Ben Blatt, author of the recently published “Nabokov’s Favorite Word is Mauve,” measures how well a group of 50 authors, plucked from lists…
-
Culture Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen Among Winners Of Prestigious Metropolitan Opera Competition
Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen, a 23-year-old countertenor and recent Princeton graduate, was named one of six winners of this year’s Metropolitan National Council Auditions. The award is one of the most prestigious granted to young opera singers; past winners include Renée Fleming, Susan Graham, and Eric Owens. In the competition’s last round, the Grand Finals Concert…
-
Culture At Book Launch, A Broadway Playwright Discusses His ‘Lurid Past’ — And, Perhaps, Present
The night was cold and sure to get colder, and at the playwright Sherman Yellen’s Upper East Side apartment, talk of snow, predicted the next morning in abundance, was so earnest as to make one nearly see it already. In fact, ensconced in the warm dim light of the 11th-story living room with a glass…
-
Culture Norman Podhoretz, One Of The Last Great New York Intellectuals, Is Holding His Ground
Norman Podhoretz, 87, has lost more influential friends than most people ever dream of making — among them playwright Lillian Hellman, critic Lionel Trilling, philosopher Hannah Arendt, and novelist Norman Mailer. In John Leland’s new profile of Podhoretz for The New York Times, one thing is clear: For Podhoretz, those feuds are as intellectually vivid…
-
The Schmooze Lena Dunham Speaks With Ariel Levy, And More To Read, Watch, And Do This Weekend
Having safely gotten ourselves past the Ides of March, it’s time to celebrate with a weekend filled with the best cultural events across the country. In New York, spend Friday night at the 92nd Street Y, where Ariel Levy will speak with Lena Dunham about her new memoir “The Rules Do Not Apply.” (That memoir…
-
Culture Chaim Potok’s Daughter On Playing A Muslim Mother: ‘Devotion Is Devotion’
Naama Potok, daughter of the famed novelist Chaim Potok, has been acting for over three decades. Now, as Playbill’s Joe Gambino reported, she’s taken on a role that’s entirely new to her: That of a Muslim mother in Iran. “I fully honor and accept the profound differences that exist between and among people,” Potok told…
-
Culture How Milton Glaser Created The Most Iconic Bob Dylan Poster
In a famous line from the movie “Mean Girls,” one character remarks that another’s hair is “so big” because “it’s full of secrets.” Viewing Milton Glaser’s iconic poster of Bob Dylan, in which the musician appears in silhouette, hair a kaleidoscopic swirl, one might wonder at the significance of the coiffeur. Is it billowing with…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
Film & TV The new ‘Superman’ is being called anti-Israel, but does that make it pro-Palestine?
- 2
Fast Forward Tucker Carlson calls for stripping citizenship from Americans who served in the Israeli army
- 3
Music ‘No matter what, I will always be a Jew.’ Billy Joel opens up about his family’s Holocaust history
- 4
Culture She was my Hebrew school bully — and I finally learned what happened to her
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Cuomo says key factor in his primary loss was Mamdani’s support from young, Jewish, and pro-Palestinian voters
-
Fast Forward Elon Musk wants your kids to use his chatbot. The same one that praised Hitler.
-
Fast Forward Nation’s largest teachers union rejects move to cut ties with ADL
-
Culture In this Holocaust story, there are few words, no swastikas, no yellow stars — just movement, passion and empathy
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
