Simi Horwitz is a feature writer and film reviewer based in New York City. In 2022, she received first place for film criticism from the Society for Feature Journalism, and in 2023, a New York Press Club Award for an Entertainment News feature; and three Los Angeles Press Club Awards, including first place for film criticism — all for pieces published in the Forward.
Simi Horwitz
By Simi Horwitz
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Culture Diagnosing Anti-Semitism as a virulent disease
Emmy Award winning documentarian Andrew Goldberg, 51, has covered many socially/historically significant topics in his films— among them, “The Armenians, A Story of Survival,” to “Proud to Serve: The Men and Women of the US Army,” to “Out in America,” to “The Iranian Americans,” — but the Jewish experience has always been close to his…
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Film & TV Charlotte Gainsbourg: Not Your Typical Jewish Mother
Charlotte Gainsbourg, 48, has little doubt that, over the course of her career, she has chosen, consciously or unconsciously, “transgressive” projects to compensate for her shyness. “So perhaps that’s why I am attracted to the unexpected,” she said during an interview. She has a soft voice with the hint of a British accent. “Also, I…
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Film & TV The Jewish Spy Who Kept Us Safe At Home
A veteran filmmaker looks at baseball catcher-turned-spy Moe Berg
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Culture An Epic German Oscar Nominee That Just Dares You To ‘Look Away’
In 2006, Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck’s first flick, “The Lives of Others,” walked off with an Oscar in the Foreign Language category (after beating out the much favored “Pan’s Labyrinth”). It was a focused, compelling film that explored the lives of two artists and the Stasi agent assigned to keep watch over them in the…
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Culture How An Orthodox Businesswoman Rose In The Ranks At The NSA
Forty-two-year-old Anne Neuberger, an Orthodox Jewish woman, was tapped by the National Security Agency as its first chief risk officer, a senior slot if ever there was one. She took the job in 2014 in the wake of Edward Snowden leaking classified NSA information to the world, thus throwing the Pentagon, along with pundits of…
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Culture How Renée Taylor, Of ‘The Nanny’ Fame, Gets It Done
Attitudes towards the overweight in general, and women in particular, have evolved — well, sort of. Just ask actress and writer Renée Taylor (“The Nanny,” “Dream On,” “How I Met Your Mother”). As a keen social observer of the cultural scene, not to mention her own weight issues over the past 85 years, she knows…
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Theater Meet The New Star Of ‘The Band’s Visit’ (Same As The Old Star)
For Sasson Gabay, 71, acting is second nature, not unlike eating, drinking or even breathing. He instinctively observes the people around him, the way they interact and behave. It’s all source material, culled and stored for future roles that he might play. “I look at you, how you speak, the kind of questions you ask,…
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Culture Ruchie Freier: Hasidic Judge, American Trailblazer
Judge Rachel (“Ruchie”) Freier, 52, is the only Hasidic woman judge in the world. She knows she’s an anomaly, and yet she sees nothing contradictory between her deeply held religious beliefs and her high-powered, secular career. “People always make a big deal that I’m the first Hasidic woman judge, but my husband [mortgage broker David…
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Culture Why saying ‘L’shana Tova’ on Rosh Hashanah may not be the correct phrase
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Culture A Jewish prophet of the 1980s would be horrified to see that we didn’t heed his warnings
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Opinion With killing of Hezbollah’s chief, Israel occupies the inarguable moral high ground
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Opinion This is the most disorienting Rosh Hashanah in memory
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Film & TV How Leonard Cohen — and a Yom Kippur prayer — inspired a coming-of-age epic
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Opinion A year after Oct. 7, Israel has the chance to remake its future — for better or worse
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Opinion Campus protests defined the year since Oct. 7. Could they actually change U.S. policy?
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Special Report At the kibbutz hit hardest on Oct. 7, a wrenching debate over how to rebuild
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