Talya Zax is the Forward’s opinion editor. Contact her at [email protected] or on Twitter, @TalyaZax.
Talya ZaxOpinion Editor
By Talya Zax
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Culture How the Forward, with humor and vehemence, taught its readers to vote
This is the third installment of a special series exploring The Forward’s election coverage throughout its 123-year history. Click here to sign up to receive it through our email newsletter, and find our earlier installments here. Look: Voting’s complicated. There are different deadlines to register depending on where you live, mixed messages about identification requirements…
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Culture Like the Jewish women laureates before her, Louise Glück sees humanity in God
On October 8, the American poet Louise Glück became the 16th woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the fourth Jewish woman, following Nelly Sachs (1966), Nadime Gordimer (1991) and Elfriede Jelinek (2004). There’s much that separates Glück, whose work has long been known for its deceptive clarity, from her Jewish predecessors. She…
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News At vice presidential debate, Pence invokes ‘Jewish grandchildren’ in defense of Trump
During Wednesday night’s Vice Presidential debate between Senator Kamala Harris and Vice President Mike Pence, one moment in particular caught the attention of Jewish viewers. Asked about President Trump’s history of obfuscation when asked to decry white nationalists and white supremacists, Pence invoked the president’s Jewish grandchildren in his defense. “Your concern that he doesn’t…
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Culture In 2020, voter access is a defining issue — just like it was on the old Lower East Side
This is the second installment of a special series exploring The Forward’s election coverage throughout its 123-year history. Click here to sign up to receive it through our email newsletter, and find our first installment here. With President Trump repeatedly challenging the integrity of the 2020 balloting during his first debate with Vice President Joe…
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Culture For America, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a new kind of Jew
In 1852, the Kentucky politician Henry Clay became the first person to lie in state in the United States Capitol Rotunda. A skilled liaison between political opposites, Clay favored abolition and inspired Abraham Lincoln. But through his life, he was also an enslaver who enforced his supposed right to own people as property, even as…
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Culture 123 years of election coverage: What the vote means to American Jews
This is the first installment of a special series exploring The Forward’s election coverage since 1897. To get next week’s edition delivered to your inbox, click here to subscribe to The Forward’s free newsletter. For American Jews, the vote has always been a potent symbol. Many of our families came as immigrants from countries where…
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Culture What would Ginsburg do? Move forward with hope.
Several weeks ago, my mother announced that she had a present for me: She’d ordered me a Ruth Bader Ginsburg face mask. It’s a funny little thing: Good, thick, cream-colored fabric patterned over with drawings of miniature RBGs. When it arrived, we agreed that I would save it to wear when I returned to my…
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Fast Forward Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a Jewish and liberal icon, dead at 87
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a beloved Jewish figure who helped pioneer the feminist legal field and served on the Supreme Court for more than a quarter century, died from complications of cancer on Friday at the age of 87. Ginsburg had defiantly remained on the court as she battled five bouts of cancer and numerous recent…
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Fast Forward Why neo-Nazis marched in Ohio this weekend, and almost every weekend in the US
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Opinion The group behind Project 2025 has a plan to protect Jews. It will do the opposite.
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Opinion Just about every interpretation of Trump’s narrow election victory is wrong
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News Texas schools want to add Queen Esther to the curriculum. Here’s why Jews (and many Christians) are opposed.
In Case You Missed It
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Fast Forward Rep. Ritchie Torres, outspoken pro-Israel advocate, is dropping hints that he could run for NY governor
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Fast Forward Ursula Haverbeck, infamous German Holocaust denier known as ‘Nazi grandma,’ dies at 96
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Fast Forward A Jewish museum in Tulsa held a funeral for remains of Holocaust victims it kept for years
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Sports Texas A&M’s Sam Salz cherishes his first taste of DI college football — and the opportunity to inspire fellow Orthodox Jews
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