JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
It happens at least once every semester: a student learns that I teach courses in Jewish studies at my university here in southeast Texas and comes to visit me during my office hours. In most cases, I have never met this student before, and at first, the conversation is hesitant, as if the student lacks…
The El Al security officer’s dark gaze bored into mine, then flicked over the middle name on my passport. “Shay. That’s Arabic, isn’t it?” “No, it’s Irish.” I was being questioned for my Birthright boarding pass for my first trip to Israel and it wasn’t going well. The rapid-fire inquiries left me reeling: Was I…
Jewish AND Latina? When I was in junior high school in Newton, Massachusetts, a middle class suburb of Boston with a large Jewish population, my friends could not believe that I, a blonde blue-eyed Jewish girl, had a brother named Fernando. “Is he adopted? “ they would ask. This was the 80’s, and Jewish kids…
By most accounts, I am not a self-hating Jew. I wrote a doctoral dissertation on a Jewish-studies topic, have a blog with the word “Zionism” in the subtitle, and have published enough articles on Jewish-related topics that there’s a (charming) post dedicated to me on one of those big white-supremacist websites. There’s a poster of…
My 8-year-old son Cai didn’t like the tension around the Brexit talk. He knew an “out” vote meant we’ll probably move from our new home in Luxembourg since my Welsh husband would become ineligible to work in his current job for the EU. As the only British people he knows voted to stay, he can’t…
After Gal Beckerman diagnosed in his final column as opinion editor, we invited Forward readers to prescribe solutions. Here are seven of your responses, edited for style and length. 1) Kill the Idea of “Authenticity” On Beckerman’s reading, we have [American Jewish] humiliation on the one hand and [Israeli] narcissism on the other. Is it…
My daughter is confused. She has asked me a number of times in the last few weeks what it means to be a Jew. She’s 5. So confusion about identity is not an unusual state for her — she’s also been wondering aloud lately about why she can’t fly. But her questions about Jewishness are…
I was signing the lease to my new apartment in Israel when my landlord asked to see my passport. He looked down at my work visa, which was pasted on a page inside, and then looked back up at me. “Oh,” he said. “This is a very bad name in Israel.” My last name, Zeveloff,…
Hybrid: Online and at the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan
Oct 2, 2022
6:30 pm ET ·
A Sukkah, IMKHA, created by artist Tobi Kahn, for the Marlene Meyerson JCC of Manhattan is an installation consisting of 13 interrelated sculpted painted wooden panels, constituting a single work of art. Join for a panel discussion with Rabbi Joanna Samuels, Chief Executive Director of the Marlene Meyerson JCC of Manhattan, Talya Zax, Innovation Editor of the Forward, and Tobi Kahn, Artist. Moderated by Mattie Kahn.