Talya Zax is the Forward’s opinion editor. Contact her at zax@forward.com or on Twitter, @TalyaZax.
Talya ZaxOpinion Editor
By Talya Zax
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Culture Movie News: ‘Call Me By Your Name,’ Barbra Streisand And Sacha Baron Cohen
In my family, movies are an essential part of Thanksgiving: Most years, my cousins in Chicago and I will go see a blockbuster on Thanksgiving morning, returning just late enough to be met by parental panic over making sure things are done on time. (Yes, we also help out.) This year I’m staying in New…
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Culture Nicole Krauss, Paul Auster Make New York Times List Of 2017’s Best Books
Novels by Nicole Krauss, Paul Auster and David Grossman are among the 100 books named to The New York Times’s 2017 list of the year’s 100 most notable books. Krauss’s “Forest Dark,” Auster’s “4 3 2 1” and Grossman’s “A Horse Walks Into a Bar,” which won this year’s Man Booker International Prize, won commendations…
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Culture Should We Give Ayn Rand A Second Chance? Tony Award-Winning Director Says Yes.
An excellent way to win the scorn of your coworkers, I have learned over the past month, is to display Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead” and “Atlas Shrugged” on your desk. (Yes, dear colleagues, Rand was Jewish, born as Alisa Rosenbaum in pre-revolutionary Russia. No, dear colleagues, I am not turning into an individualist psychopath, or…
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Culture ‘Illyria’ Mixes Joe Papp, Robert Moses And McCarthyism, But It’s Not Shakespeare
Is there one right way to make art? Should it be an idealistic endeavor, best pursued without interest in fame or compensation? Can artists seek professional success without having to compromise their art to match their patrons’ values? If ideals and commercialism clash — for instance, if one has a young child to provide for,…
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Culture ‘Indecent’ To Air On PBS ‘Great Performances’ This Friday
“Indecent,” Paula Vogel’s loving paean to Sholem Asch’s “God of Vengeance,” will get its own resurrection this Friday; a filmed performance of the play from its Broadway run will air on PBS’s “Great Performances.” “Indecent,” which won two Tony Awards — including one for director Rebecca Taichman, a member of this year’s Forward 50 —…
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Culture Masha Gessen’s Definitive Take On Contemporary Russia Is The Work Of A Lifetime
“I wanted to write a story about how Russian democracy didn’t come to be,” Masha Gessen said. We were discussing Gessen’s “The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia,” a finalist for the National Book Award in nonfiction. In the book, Gessen tells the story of Russia’s post-Soviet evolution through the intertwining stories of seven…
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The Schmooze Yuval Sharon’s ‘War Of The Worlds,’ DOC NYC And More To Read And Do This Weekend
It finally feels like fall, Taylor Swift’s new album is out, and if you’re like me, you’re reeling from the continued cascade of allegations of sexual assault and harassment being reported against an ever-increasing range of men in politics, Hollywood and the media. If you, like me, are resultantly in need of a mental break,…
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Film & TV Fran Drescher, Forward Gala Host, Discusses ‘The Nanny,’ Cancer Activism And Netanyahu
The voice. The hair. The unpretentious, absolute Jewishness. Fran Drescher, creator, writer and star of the hit 1990s sitcom “The Nanny,” healthcare advocate and recent “Broad City” guest star, is an essential figure in contemporary Jewish American culture. Luckily for the Forward, she’s also serving as Master of Ceremonies at our 120th Anniversary Gala on…
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