Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
Coastal elites, we have been told recently, need to pay more attention to rural, white America. Fine, let them watch Moby Longinotto’s documentary, “The Joneses,” set in the trailer parks and small-town churches of very red, working-poor Mississippi and focusing on a transgender grandmother. Jehri Jones, 73 and divorced, shepherds her hard-luck family (two of her sons are disabled) through depressions both economic and psychological. The family is also wrestling with decades-old scars — while Jheri was transitioning, her ex-wife shut her out of their children’s lives for seven years. “The Joneses” is as sweet and sad as a melted ice cream cake, but its bleakness is leavened by Jheri’s simple joy in her body and by the family’s earnest desire to care for itself: Think “Transparent” without the decadence or narcissism.
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.
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