Master Harold and the Boys
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
This may be a case of who-can- remember-what-happened-in-January, but I can’t get out of my mind the play I saw just at Signature Theater, Athol Fugard’s “Master Harold… and the Boys.” I am an easy mark for all things South Africa, and yet: On a rainy afternoon in apartheid-era Port Elizabeth, the white son of the St. George’s Park Tea Room’s owners commits a scalding injustice against one of the family’s two black servants, who also staff the tea room. The play meanders for its first half, but then midway through, it snaps straight like the cruelest rod, and you can’t take your eyes off for the remainder. I think Fugard explains a bit more than necessary now and then, but his play left a visceral mark, especially considering the social and political climate in which we find ourselves now.
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
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