CLOSE-UPS FROM THE DIASPORA
“Lost Futures: Journeys into the Jewish Diaspora” is an exhibition of photographs by Chrystie Sherman. Some 25 images document her recent travels to once-thriving Jewish communities in the former Soviet Union, Central Asia, India, Cuba and North Africa. The stories of these communities’ struggles to survive in the face of poverty, discrimination and emigration are reflected in the faces pictured here. In one picture, a rabbi in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, sits in front of a synagogue under construction that seems unlikely to ever be completed; another depicts the last kosher butcher in Old Havana, Cuba.
The New York-based Sherman, who has worked as a photojournalist for the Associated Press and PBS, has said that the goal of her Diaspora project is to connect Jews and to help them recognize the distinctive cultures of other Jewish communities.
92nd Street Y, 1395 Lexington Ave., Milton J. Weill Art Gallery; reception Sept. 10, 6 p.m.-8 p.m., exhibition Sept. 10-Oct. 24, please call for hours; free. (212-415-5749 or www.92y.org)
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.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
