
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.
In one of his last interviews in office, President Barack Obama told The New York Times’ chief book critic, Michiko Kakutani, that he thinks Philip Roth and Saul Bellow rank among the greatest authors to explore the experience of being an outsider in the United States. “Some of the great books by Jewish authors like…
This week, the Forward presents a more concise weekend roundup. In books, look to Andre Aciman’s new collection of linked stories “Enigma Variations,” Ayelet Waldman’s new memoir of microdosing LSD “A Really Good Day,” , and the newly released paperback version of Ludmila Ulitskaya’s “The Big Green Tent.” In New York, catch the last week…
On Sunday, January 14th a crowd of literary luminaries will hold a midtown Manhattan rally, “Writers Resist: #LouderTogether” to support the right to free expression. The rally’s primary organizer, PEN America, described the event as a “literary protest” to “defend free expression, reject hatred, and uphold truth in the face of lies and misinformation.” The…
To Eleanor Reissa, director of New Yiddish Rep’s current revival of “God of Vengeance,” Sholem Asch’s controversial 1907 play is about questions, often maddeningly unanswerable ones. “Who is to blame? What is it about? Who is the most corrupt? What does it mean to be this kind of religious Jew? What is a whore? What…
Winners of the 2016 National Jewish Book Awards, announced this morning by the Jewish Book Council, include Daniel Gordis, whose “Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn” won Book of the Year, Rose Tremain, who won the JJ Greenberg Memorial Award in Fiction for “The Gustav Sonata,” and Michael Chabon, who was awarded the…
Think the psychedelic drug LSD belongs in the tie-dyed “turn on, tune in, drop out” days of the past? Ayelet Waldman — novelist, essayist, and wife of Michael Chabon — believes that, at least when it comes to therapeutic drug use, you ought to think again. In her new book “A Really Good Day: How…
Sam Barsky came to knitting by chance, perhaps a divine one: it was 1999, he’d recently dropped out of nursing school due to medical issues, and he was searching for a new purpose. He came across a yarn shop, fulfilled a longtime dream of taking an introductory knitting class, and, well, followed that thread. (Sorry.)…
Following a ruling by the German commission devoted to restitution of Nazi-looted art, Hanover’s Sprengel Museum will return a German Expressionist watercolor to the heirs of its former owner, Max Rüdenberg. As ArtForum reported, the painting — Karl Schmidt-Rottluff’s “Marsh Landscape with Red Windmill,” completed in 1922 — was donated to the museum by German…
מאַטי מענדלאָוויטשעס ברודער, וואָס האָט יאָרן לאַנג געליטן פֿון דעפּרעסיע, האָט הײַיאָר זיך גענומען דאָס לעבן. .
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