Gal Beckerman was a staff writer and then the Forward’s opinion editor until 2014. He was previously an assistant editor at the Columbia Journalism Review where he wrote essays and media criticism. His book reviews have appeared in The New York Times Book Review and Bookforum. His first book, “When They Come for Us, We’ll Be Gone: The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry,” won the 2010 National Jewish Book Award and the 2012 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, as well as being named a best book of the year by The New Yorker and The Washington Post. Follow Gal on Twitter at @galbeckerman
Gal Beckerman
By Gal Beckerman
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Opinion The Long Island Jewish Community Center Debate
Having used the Forward’s patented debate drinking game tonight, I’m sitting here quite dry. Which means I’ve got a few quick takeaways from the slugfest in Lon Giland. 1) Jewiest debate ever: Let’s just get this out of the way. Carol Greenberg? Jeremy Epstein? Barry Green? Cary Latke? Latke?! Thankfully the next debate is in…
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Opinion Hail to the Veep
Wiping the sweat from my forehead after a much, much more engaging debate, and just have a few thoughts to share. 1) It was not boring. Between Joe Biden’s fulminating about Paul Ryan’s “malarkey” and the appearance of actual, warm blooded conversation between two men with opposite worldviews, it was impossible to tear your eyes…
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Opinion First Thoughts on Tonight’s Debate
The first presidential debate just ended and I’ve pressed the mute button on the remote control. Without listening to the yammering of the pundits, here are some of my immediate impressions. 1) Serious Energy Deficit: I’m not talking about economics here. I mean the basic level of emotion and personality and spunk expressed between the…
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Opinion Haaretz Tweets That Haaretz Is on Strike
Scanning our Twitter feed this morning we saw this unusual tweet from Haaretz, announcing that the paper’s employees were going on strike (the Forward has an online partnership with the Israeli paper in which we swap content). #Haaretz and The Marker have launched a strike, paralyzing the newsroom. We will resume updating when the strike…
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Opinion The Passing of Sami Rohr
I just learned of the death yesterday of Sami Rohr, the businessman and philanthropist powerhouse behind the growth of Chabad around the world. He was also the namesake of an incredible literary prize that his children endowed in his name on his 80th birthday and that I was so grateful to receive this past year….
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Opinion Death of a Soviet Jewry Activist
Last Friday, June 13, Joe Smukler died. For anyone involved with the Soviet Jewry movement — and certainly for the refuseniks who spent years struggling to get out of the Soviet Union — the Smukler name was synonymous with the kind of dogged, unrelenting, year-in-year-out activism that defined the cause. Joe and his wife, Connie,…
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Opinion Romney’s Vision of Capitalism
Capitalism in its purest form is gambling. Ask any entrepreneur. You have an idea for a product or a service; you bet on your premonition that there is a market for it, and you roll the dice. Then you either win or lose. That’s a simplistic rendering, but it is the basic gist of our…
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Opinion Forward 1, Hungary 0
Elie Wiesel announced today his decision to renounce a Hungarian state award he received in 2004. Hungary has been “whitewashing” its fascist history during World War II, Wiesel said, including attempting to rebury the ashes of a writer, Jozsef Nyiro, a member of the notorious pro-Nazi Arrow Cross, in his native Transylvania. As Wiesel put…
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