A Living Lens: The Forverts Reunited Nava Semel’s Family
From the mailbag: I just received a note from Israeli author and journalist Nava Semel. Ms. Semel was writing to alert us to the publication of her new book, “Israisland,” but she included a story that she rightly surmised might interest me.
“My American grandfather found out that his abandoned son survived the Holocaust through an article in the Yiddish Forward in 1946,” she wrote. “My late father Itzhak Artzi was then a young Zionist leader and he gave an interview to Forward correspondent in Paris. The interview was published in New York and my grandfather saw it. Forward is indeed responsible for uniting my family and ending the split.”
Alana Newhouse, the Forward’s Arts & Culture editor, is touring the country, speaking about her new book, “A Living Lens: Photographs of Jewish Life From the Pages of 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.
