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 Poet Daniel Borzutzky Wins National Book Award
At last night’s National Book Awards, poet Daniel Borzutzky took home the top prize for poetry. His collection “The Performance of Being Human” was one of five finalists for the award; others included Rita Dove’s “Collected Poems 1974-2004” and Solmaz Sharif’s “Look.” Borzutzky, who was born to Chilean Jewish parents, is a professor at Chicago’s…
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Culture J.K. Rowling’s Jewish Wizard, Bernie Sanders’s Manifesto, And 8 Other Things To Read, Watch, And Do This Weekend
It can be hard to remember to take time for yourself, in this week between the madness of the election and that of Thanksgiving. Still, take some time this week for the arts. With good reads, a few good movies, and events in New York, D.C., Chicago and Los Angeles, there are plenty of options…
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Culture Holocaust Love Story Opera To Make 2018 World Premiere
In January, 2018 a new opera with an unusual angle on the Holocaust will make its world premiere at Opera Colorado. The Denver-based opera company, which recently announced its 2017-2018 season, will perform composer Gerald Cohen and librettist Deborah Brevoort’s “Steal a Pencil For Me,” which tells the story of Jaap and Ina Polak, who…
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Culture Why Gloria Steinem Thinks Judaism Should Dump Patriarchy
On a miserably rainy November morning, a journalist battled the wind through downtown Manhattan to arrive at what was, until recently, a women’s prison in Chelsea. The inherent Chelsea-ness was impossible to ignore; soft electronic music pulsed above the hiss of expensive espresso machines and the journalist, wearing an unsubtle shade of red, found herself…
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Culture 8 Of The Most Moving Responses To Leonard Cohen’s Death
Following Leonard Cohen’s death on November 7th, news of which spread this past Friday, artists, critics, and plain old fans have sprung forward to pay homage to the great singer-songwriter. Many have recalled Cohen’s famous lyric from “Anthem:” “There is a crack in everything/That’s how the light gets in.” Even as we mourn Cohen, the…
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A Year of Curses and Many Blessings Daveed Diggs
Meet ‘Hamilton’s’ Original Thomas Jefferson (and Marquis de Lafayette) If you dig far enough back in Daveed Diggs’s Instagram feed, you’ll find a blurry picture of a framed white poster on a yellowing wall. The poster, filled with a dense list of names, is topped with a brief, triumphant title: “Hamilton.” He took that photo…
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Culture Such a Beautiful Holocaust Novel — Maybe Too Beautiful
Affinity Konar was still a bit starstruck, there in a lounge at Manhattan’s Warwick Hotel. She’d just met Lucette Lagnado, one of the authors of “Children of the Flames,” a book about the Nazi doctor Josef Mengele and the twins who survived his Auschwitz laboratory. Konar said the book was one she had been “obsessed…
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The Schmooze Amy Schumer, Jon Stewart Said They’d Move If Trump Won — Where Are They Now?
As Donald Trump campaigned for the presidency, scores of celebrities — among them Amy Schumer, Lena Dunham, Chelsea Handler, Jon Stewart and Barbra Streisand — stepped forward to say they’d leave the country if he won. In the days since he did, their responses have varied from silence to a renewed determination to stay and…
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