
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.
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…
Today John Lewis — civil rights movement hero, longtime Congressional representative, National Book Award-winner, preacher of the importance of seeking out “good trouble” — turns 77. Little speaks to Lewis’s significance as well as his own words. Whether he’s speaking about his own history, from his childhood in rural Alabama to his place on the…
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world,” Anne Frank wrote in her famous diary. She would likely be proud of an institution bearing her name, the Anne Frank Center For Mutual Respect, which has wasted no time positioning itself as an outspoken critic of President…
With a long weekend ahead, you have even more time to take in the best cultural events in New York, Washington D.C., Chicago and Los Angeles. If you’re in New York, don’t miss the first public screening in over half a century of Paul Newman’s short film “On the Harmfulness of Tobacco.” Before you go,…
Midway through Asghar Farhadi’s “The Salesman,” Emad, the actor and schoolteacher who serves as the Oscar-nominated film’s protagonist, seizes one of his student’s phones, hoping to delete photos the student has taken of him sleeping. He castigates the boy for the risqué images he finds, telling him his father needs to look at them. A…
Children are often told they can be anything they want when they grow up; they’re less commonly informed that the same rule applies when they die. After all, the philosopher Jeremy Bentham requested that his body be embalmed and put to service as the mascot of University College London, where his physical remains still cheerfully…
שבֿע צוקער פֿירט דעם שמועס מיט וויווי לאַקס און ביידע לייענען פֿאָר עטלעכע פֿעליעטאָנען פֿון יענע צײַטן.
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