This Week in Forward Arts and Culture

Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
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Leah Koenig looks into the proliferation of kosher certification in America.
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Curt Schleier and Gordon Haber ponder “God in America,” a six-hour PBS documentary that debunks the myth that the Founding Fathers were evangelicals.
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Steven G. Kellman goes poking around in Nicole Krauss’s “Great House.”
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Philologos wonders if swearing loyalty to a “Jewish and democratic state” really means anything, anyway.
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Benjamin Ivry profiles Israeli composer Chaya Czernowin, whose works are receiving greater and greater acclaim.
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Zohar Tirosh-Polk reviews “The Human Scale,” a new play by The New Yorker writer Lawrence Wright (previously interviewed on The Arty Semite here) about his experience reporting from Gaza.
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And this week on the Forverts video channel Boris Sandler talks to Yiddish actor Rafael Goldwaser about his play “The Metamorphosis of a Melody” (Previously reviewed on The Arty Semite here) which returns to New York on November 11:
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.
