Yid Lit: Rachel Botsman

Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
If you pay for a membership to Netflix or Zipcar, if you’ve gone to a clothing swap, a potluck or given or gotten anything from Craigslist, you’re participating in “collaborative consumption,” the phenomenon of sharing, swapping, borrowing and lending that Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers write in their new book, “What’s Mine is Yours” (Harper Business), is enabled by networking technology and is changing the way we live. I spoke with author and speaker Rachel Botsman recently about the pulse of American consumerism, sharing’s Jewish roots and Israel’s unique position in this space as a kibbutznik culture and technology front-runner.
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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
