And the Rat Sang: Nava Semel’s Opera To Open in Canada
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
By Dan Friedman October 28, 2009
Nava Semel comes from a musical family. Her brother, Shlomo Artzi, is one of Israel’s most famous singers. She, however, is a novelist whose 2001 book “And the Rat Laughed” (“Tzchok shel achbarosh”) has yet to find an American publisher but has indeed found a North American venue for it — Toronto’s Opera York.
The Hebrew opera, written by Ella Milch-Sheriff in conjunction with Semel starts off in the future with flashes back to the present, in which a grandmother Holocaust survivor recounts her traumatic story to her granddaughter. Semel tells part of her own grandparents’ story here this week at the Forward.
Why I became the Forward’s editor-in-chief
You are surely a friend of the Forward if you’re reading this. And so it’s with excitement and awe — of all that the Forward is, was, and will be — that I introduce myself to you as the Forward’s newest editor-in-chief.
And what a time to step into the leadership of this storied Jewish institution! For 129 years, the Forward has shaped and told the American Jewish story. I’m stepping in at an intense time for Jews the world over. We urgently need the Forward’s courageous, unflinching journalism — not only as a source of reliable information, but to provide inspiration, healing and hope.
— Alyssa Katz, editor-in-chief
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
