Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of books and literature, including both non-fictional and fictional works.
Books
The Latest
-
Books Forverts Editorial: What’s Our Agenda?
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. As editor of the Forverts, most of the questions I get from readers involve either the price of an obituary or a request to decipher a handwritten postcard written by a deceased relative. Recently, though, I got an email with a very different sort of question: “I’d…
-
Books A Fable About a Modern King David
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. The American writer Joshua Cohen’s last two books, Book of Numbers and Witz, were considerable epic novels that dealt with philosophical issues through a mix of satirical realism and grotesque fantasy. But his new book, “Moving Kings” (both a name of a company and an allegorical key),…
-
Books Everything You Need To Know About Jews And Chocolate Is In This Book
When one of my sons (I won’t say which, to protect his anonymity) was small, if asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, his answer was always the same: an astronaut, a chef and a daddy. I wonder how many people, asked that very question, would answer “a rabbi and a chocolate…
-
Books Why You Should Sneak-Read In Shul This Yom Kippur
My journey, both personally and professionally, in Orthodox and non-Orthodox circles alike, has introduced me to a surprising divide, one that does not map neatly onto the denominational divide but evokes diverging passions that grow more animated as one moves from right to left. Namely: The practice of reading in shul. Every year I try…
-
Books The Rebbetzin’s Guide: What To Bring Your Host For Rosh Hashanah
So you’re invited out for a Rosh Hashanah meal — and you’re stuck as to what to bring? We’ve got you covered. For The Gourmand We’re itching for a copy of celebrity Israeli chef Yotam Ottolenghi’s Sweet (his publisher should have timed the release better, with the chief holiday of sweets upon us now), but…
-
Books In Leaving Orthodoxy, Tova Mirvis Voices Questions Many Secretly Harbor
I was not raised in modern Orthodoxy; I married into it. And as I read Tova Mirvis’ memoir, The Book of Separation, it often felt as though I was reading my own misgivings and hesitations. Her book opens with a chronicling of her first Rosh Hashanah, after leaving her marriage and Orthodox Judaism. Mirvis grew…
-
Books In Praise of Giving Offense: A Review Of Eli Valley’s Diaspora Boy
There’s a concept in the early Zionist writings that still haunts contemporary Jewish life. It’s the belief that the Diaspora Jew is an outmoded kind of Jew. Weak and effeminate from too much studying, he is submissive and abject, always apologizing to the gentiles who hate him. As opposed to this Diaspora Jew, the early…
-
Books I’m Black, Jewish And Gay — And Food Is My Weapon Against Bigotry
I am going back to the mountaintop. In three weeks, I will return to Charlottesville, Virginia. It is not because last Saturday it became the site of an American pogrom. Last weekend dozens of people were injured during violence sparked by the Unite the Right rally and counter-protests. Two law enforcement officers were killed in…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
News Trump antisemitism executive order invokes anti-KKK law and targets ‘leftist, anti-American’ universities
- 2
Forward Newsletters What the ADL should have said in response to Elon Musk’s salute
- 3
Culture Is Elon Musk Jewish?
- 4
Fast Forward Why Trump ordered an American version of Israel’s Iron Dome defense system
In Case You Missed It
-
Yiddish אַ דאַנק דעם זשורי־דינסט האָבן זיי זיך פֿאַרליבטThanks to jury duty, these two fell in love
ווען חנה האָט אויסגעפֿונען אַז סטיוו איז, ווי זי, פֿון מישיגען, זענען זיי גיך געוואָרן גוטע פֿרײַנד.
-
Opinion How a Holocaust philosopher can help us make sense of Trump’s disgraceful Jan. 6 pardons
-
Fast Forward UFC fighter says Hitler was a ‘good guy’ and the ‘Holocaust ain’t real’
-
Fast Forward Keith Siegel, Yarden Bibas, Ofer Kalderon set to be released Saturday from Gaza
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
