This Week in Forward Arts and Culture
• Benjamin Ivry dusts off Benjamin Botkin, a pioneering folklorist vilified for his scholarly openness.
• Shlomo Schwartzberg celebrates journalist Ruth Gruber, who became the youngest Ph.D. in history — in 1932.
• Philologos investigates the word “synagogue,” and why nobody seems to use it very much.
• Yossl Huttler contributes two poems about the High Holy Days.
• Gordon Haber critiques “The Chosen Peoples: America, Israel, and the Ordeals of Divine Election” by Todd Gitlin and Liel Leibovitz.
• In the latest Nigun Project, Jeremiah Lockwood joins forces with Malian singer Khaira Arby and her band on “The Baal Shem Tov’s Nigun.”
• Keith Meatto reviews Jon Papernick’s short story collection “There Is No Other,” which was previously featured on the Forward’s Yid Lit podcast, here.
• In this week’s Yid Lit podcast, Allison Gaudet Yarrow talks to Rachel Shukert about her new memoir “Everything is Going to Be Great.”
• And on the Forverts Video Channel, Ross Perlin, a “New York Jew in China,” reports on “real Chinese food”:
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.
