Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
It took me a moment to appreciate Leela Corman’s brilliant graphic novel, “Unterzakhn” because it’s all things I am not: brassy, polished and containing multiple complex storylines. Leela, forgive me the review I wrote in this newspaper when I was an insecure young person. I’ve been saving Corman’s recent book — a collection of short picture-essays called “We All Wish for Deadly Force” — for a moment when my need to escape into art would outweigh my embarrassment. That moment has come. Thanks, Trump! There are times when we feel we can’t go on living, and then out of the blue someone describes the inexplicable cruelty of the world very sweetly and simply and perceptively, and with lightness. I have a few pages left in this quiet, honest, funny, sensitive book that is about obscene tragedy yet reads like a series of anecdotes and until I finish, I do know that the world will keep spinning. Thank you, Leela!
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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