
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.
When Henry Rousso landed at Houston’s George Bush International Airport on February 22, the Paris-based historian, who studies Holocaust-era Europe, was expecting a smooth entry to the country, where he was scheduled to attend a symposium at Texas A&M University. After all, as an academic Rousso had spent 30 years making international trips for conferences….
Two weeks before the inauguration of President Trump, in a quiet diner some 25 miles up the Hudson, from Manhattan, Sana Krasikov said something she could not have imagined would be as prescient as, in retrospect, it clearly was. “I was asked after my last book, ‘What’s your most valued possession?’” she told me. “I…
The 2017 film awards show circuit has been more politically charged than most, from Meryl Streep’s speech criticizing President Trump for mocking a disabled reporter during his 2016 campaign to Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ pointedly humorous imitation of Trump, performed as she accepted a Screen Actors Guild Award for her role on HBO’s “Veep.” Central to Hollywood’s…
It’s the last weekend of February, and the countdown until spring will pass faster with the aid of great culture. Start with some excellent recent reads. In longform, have your breath taken away by Kathryn Schulz’s exploration of loss in The New Yorker; in Harper’s, follow self-proclaimed “queer, Jewish, anti-Putin” journalist Masha Gessen through the…
The Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect began attracting a significant amount of public attention in late January, when its executive director Steven Goldstein published a statement decrying President Trump’s rhetoric and stated policy goals regarding immigrants. “As President Trump prepares orders to wall out Mexicans and shut out refugees from America, today marks one…
Earlier today, Vice President Mike Pence made an unannounced visit to Chesed Shel Emet cemetery, the Jewish cemetery just west of St. Louis that was desecrated this past weekend. He was accompanied by the Republican governor of Missouri Eric Greitens — who is, himself, Jewish. While many were happy for Pence’s visit, calling it a…
Philip Roth, Stephen Sondheim, Art Spiegelman and a number of other Jewish luminaries have lent their names to an open letter beseeching President Trump to reconsider restricting entry to the country for refugees from around the world and immigrants from a group of Muslim-majority countries. The letter, signed by 65 writers and artists and written…
On the day when President Trump most forcefully condemned anti-Semitism, his press secretary Sean Spicer is clashing with the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect, based in New York, over whether Trump’s comments were powerful enough. Trump on Tuesday decried “the anti-Semitic threats targeting our Jewish community and community centers,” including yesterday’s wave of 11…
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