Forward 50 2017
‘Alt-Right’ Provocateur Or New-Wave Jewish Journalist? It’s hard to know how exactly to categorize Jewish “alt-right” personality Laura Loomer. Through a series of stunts, articles and social media campaigns, the proudly Jewish Loomer has embraced the anti-immigrant, anti-Islam platform of the fringe right, minus the anti-Semitism. Is she a performance artist? Or perhaps the Jewish…
The Former Funnyman Finds His Voice In The Senate Al Franken went from comedian to politician — and now he’s somewhere in between. The longtime “Saturday Night Live” funnyman swore off laughs as he ran to represent Minnesota in the Senate, wanting to prove to his constituents that he could buckle down and appropriately represent…
The Master At Making America Cry (In A Good Way) American Jews have always been great at getting laughs. They’re less well known for drawing tears. As the creator of NBC’s “This Is Us,” Dan Fogelman has been doing precisely that — and has created this year’s highest-rated new show in the process. Fogelman, 38,…
Starting The Debate On Zionism And Feminism Emily Shire’s Twitter bio says it all — combining pride in Israel, feminism and femininity, too: “My high school yearbook quotes were of Golda Meir and Carrie Bradshaw.” Shire, a 27-year-old law school student and contributor to the Forward, became a voice for young feminist Zionists when she…
The Intermarriage Innovator Asking The Tough Questions Should a rabbi be permitted to marry a Jew and a non-Jew? This year, that question roiled the Conservative movement as it struggled to balance its embrace of modernity with the strictures of Jewish law and tradition. Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie put a face, and a proposal, to that…
A Leading Rabbi On Israel’s ‘Blacklist’ When he was a child, Rabbi Morris Allen heard his father’s three articles of faith of being a Jew, as he wrote in the Forward earlier this year: “Keep kosher, love Israel and vote Democratic.” Over the three decades of his career as a rabbi for Beth Jacob Congregation…
Breaking New Ground In American Jewish Literature Nicole Krauss is no stranger to attention. Her early novels won her a spot on Granta’s 2007 list of the best young American novelists; just before the release of her third book, “Great House,” The New Yorker deemed her one of the country’s 20 best writers under the…
The Predictably Irrational Economist Economists long believed that people were rational actors — that they would spend their money in the most efficient way possible. However, Richard Thaler, along with fellow Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman, was one of the few researchers willing to question that orthodoxy. Thaler’s creativity in pursuit of the truth led him…
He Won A Nobel Prize By Being A Great Scientist—And Better Manager Without Barry Barish, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory — which detected evidence of black holes at the other side of the universe — might never have observed anything. But for all his efforts as the director of the LIGO project during its years…
Broadway And Hollywood’s Musical Wunderkind Could Benj Pasek have had a better year? As one half of the songwriting duo Pasek and Paul, with Justin Paul — they’ve worked together since 2006, when they were college freshmen — he won the 2017 Tony for best original score for the Broadway sensation “Dear Evan Hansen.” He…
When Hurricane Harvey Rained Out Their Wedding, They Made Lemons Into Lemonade Like rain on your wedding day, postponing the happiest day of your life and making other people happy is a little bit ironic. But it didn’t feel that way when Dayna Skolkin and Josh Tillis served the three-course meal intended for their rained-out…
