This Week in Forward Arts and Culture

Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
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In our Summer movie special, John Semley casts a critical but approving eye on the re-imagined exploits of Captain America;
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Jenny Hendrix has some harsh words for “Sarah’s Key,” a film about France’s 1942 Vel’ d’Hiv roundup;
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Myra Mniewski relishes the life’s work of the most accomplished translator of Russian literature into German;
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Elizabeth Stone goes through the ups and downs of a family with an autistic child in “Mabul” at the San Francisco Film Festival,
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and Olga Gershenson is impressed by “The Law in these Parts,” a prize-winning documentary at the Jerusalem Film Festival about Israel’s legal system in the occupied territories.
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Carol Zemel appreciates the masterful, but not very Jewish, work of Lucian Freud.
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Philologos unveils the many names of eggplant, most of which mean “the anti-flatulence vegetable.”
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Gavriel D. Rosenfeld talks to Luca Zevi, architect of the new Museo Nazionale della Shoah in Rome.
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Benjamin Ivry appreciates the voluminous works of French author Henri Raczymow.
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In the latest Yid Lit podcast, Allison Gaudet Yarrow talks to Janet Reitman, author of “Inside Scientology: The Story of America’s Most Secretive Religion.”
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.
