
Image by YouTube
What got me most this year, (pre-election, it must be said) was Beyoncé’s “visual album,” “Lemonade,” which chronicles a deep betraying love but is also about everything: The history of the world, being a black women in America, fathers and daughters, performance, mothers and daughters, American cities and countries and towns, violence. Alchemy. Deep, unapologetic, beautiful rage. Writing. Poetry. Celebration.
I wasn’t expecting it. But I was captivated and then undone and then rebuilt and then destructed by it. In other words, it did all the things art should do to you. And it instructed too. It told me: Go there. Commit. Do what you do. Do it right. Do it best. Be brave.
Use all your kinds of magic.
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.
