Gal Beckerman, opinion editor, joined the Forward in August 2009 as a staff writer, and was promoted to opinion editor in April 2011. 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. Beckerman was also the New York bureau chief of the Jerusalem Post during the Lebanon War of 2006. He spent 2008 living in Berlin on an Alexander von Humboldt fellowship. His history of the movement to free Jews from the Soviet Union during the Cold War, "When They Come for Us, We'll Be Gone: The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry," was published in the fall of 2010 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. "When They Come for Us, We'll Be Gone" was named the 2010 Jewish Book of the Year, receiving a National Jewish Book Award from the by Jewish Book Council. Gal Beckerman can be reached at beckerman@forward.com.
Paul Berger joined The Forward as a staff writer in 2011. For the previous eight years, he was a freelance journalist, including two years as the New York correspondent for London's Jewish Chronicle newspaper. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, the New York Observer, The (London) Times and Wired.com. He is also the co-author/contributing editor of eight books on a range of subjects, such as the Forbes 400 and the early years of network television. Before arriving in America, Paul was a reporter at The Western Morning News, in Cornwall, England, where he won the Society of Editors Award. Paul Berger can be reached at berger@forward.com.
Gabrielle Birkner joined the Forward as web editor in December 2008. Serving as director of digital media since April 2011, she is responsible for the editorial content of forward.com, and oversees digital and social media strategy for the news organization. She is also the founder and editor of the Forward's women's issues blog, The Sisterhood. Previously, she worked at The New York Sun, where she was the features editor and, before that, a staff reporter. She joined the Sun, from The New York Jewish Week, where she was a staff writer. Gabrielle is a graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. Her writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, More, Moment, Haaretz and Women's Wear Daily, among other publications. Gabrielle Birkner can be reached at birkner@forward.com.
Larry Cohler-Esses is assistant managing editor with responsibility for news coverage. He joined the staff in December 2008. Previously, he served as Editor-at-Large for the Jewish Week, an investigative reporter for the New York Daily News, and as a staff writer for the Jewish Week as well as the Washington Jewish Week. Larry has written extensively on the Arab-Jewish relations both in the United States and the Middle East. He received several Laurels Awards from the Columbia Journalism Review, and two New York Press Association awards. Larry Cohler-Esses can be reached at cohleresses@forward.com.
Devra Ferst is the editor of the Jew and the Carrot, the Forward’s food blog, and when not at her desk she can often be found in a kitchen. She joined the Forward as an editorial assistant in 2009. She was named Food Editor and Assistant to the Editor in 2011. She worked previously for the Jerusalem Report. She graduated from Barnard College in 2007, where she earned a degree in American Studies. Devra Ferst can be reached at ferst@forward.com.
Dan Friedman is the arts and culture editor of the Forward. A founding editor of Zeek, Dan has a PhD in Comparative Literature from Yale and an MA in English Literature from Cambridge. He taught poetry, literature, and film at Cambridge and Yale. More recently he has headed the English departments at Schechter Regional and Yeshiva University high schools. As well as publishing various scholarly articles on film, poetry, and photography he is a qualified soccer coach and certified lifeguard. Dan writes fiction and poetry but is better known for his writing for “Da Ali G Show.” Dan Friedman can be reached at dfriedman@forward.com.
Ezra Glinter,staff writer,joined the Forward as the arts and culture fellow in 2011 after receiving a master's degree from the Cultural Reporting and Criticism program at New York University's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. He became a staff writer in January 2012. Previously he served as the arts and entertainment editor of the McGill Tribune and the music critic of That's Shanghai magazine. His writing has appeared in the Jerusalem Post, the National Post and the Montreal Gazette, among other publications. Ezra Glinter can be reached at glinter@forward.com.
Nathan Guttman staff writer, is the Forward's Washington bureau chief. He joined the staff in 2006 after serving for five years as Washington correspondent for the Israeli dailies Ha'aretz and The Jerusalem Post. In Israel, he was the features editor for Ha'aretz and chief editor of Channel 1 TV evening news. He was born in Canada and grew up in Israel. He is a graduate of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Nathan Guttman can be reached at guttman@forward.com.
Richard Harrington deputy art director, joined the Forward in 1997. Before working at the Forward, he worked in graphic production work for various banks and consulting companies, and at the desktop publishing company Function Thru Form. He is an actor and playwright, and has toured on the Canadian theater fringe-festival circuit and around the world with one- and two-man comedies, most recently the award-winning show “Nharcolepsy,” with Chris Kauffman, a comedy about a cabaret singer and his mime sidekick searching for the Yeti. He was also a founding writer/performer of a radio play collective, the Brick Radio Crash Box, at the Brick Theater in Brooklyn. Richard Harrington can be reached at production@forward.com.
Kurt Hoffman joined the Forward as art director in 1997. Previously, he worked as a freelance graphic designer and illustrator. He did graphic production work at Rolling Stone and Us magazine, and specialized in electronic illustration for academic textbooks at Function Thru Form, a desktop publishing company. He has a BFA in Fine Arts from Cooper Union. In 2010, some of his drawings were shown at the Ludwig Museum in Cologne. Kurt Hoffman also plays and composes music for various projects, currently for the group Les Chauds Lapins, whose 2011 album, "Amourettes" is available on Barbès Records. Kurt Hoffman can be reached at production@forward.com.
Nathan Jeffay is the Israel correspondent of the Forward. Previously, he worked in various capacities for the London-based Jewish Chronicle. He also provided reporting on Jewish religious affairs for the national press in the United Kingdom specializing in covering the ultra-Orthodox community and matters of Jewish law. He has a bachelor’s degree in Jewish Civilization from the University of Leeds and a master’s degree in Christian Theology from the University of Cambridge. Nathan Jeffay can be reached at jeffay@forward.com.
Nate Lavey produces digital media for the Forward. He joined the Forward in a full-time capacity in February 2011. He is a graduate of Reed College, where he earned a degree in philosophy. Previously, Nate worked for the Lone Wolf Documentary Group in Portland, Maine and for National Public Radio in Washington. He can be reached at lavey@forward.com.
Josh Nathan-Kazis, staff writer, joined the Forward in a full-time capacity in March 2010. Previously, he worked as the editor of New Voices, an independent national magazine for Jewish college students, and as the news and politics editor of The Faster Times. His work has appeared in Tablet and Haaretz, among other publication. He is also the host of the Forward's Reporters' Roundtable podcast. In 2011, his reporting won him a 2011 Deadline Club Award, and two Ippy Awards. Josh Nathan-Kazis can be reached at nathankazis@forward.com.
Laura Sinberg joined the Forward as features editor in October 2009. In 2010, she launched the Forward’s pop culture blog, The Shmooze. After graduating from the University of Florida in 2004 with a degree in journalism, she joined The New York Sun, where she served as a news editor and style reporter. Most recently, she worked as a reporter at Forbes.com, covering women's issues for their executive woman channel. Her work has appeared in Martha Stewart Weddings, AM New York and Time Out Magazine, among other publications. Laura Sinberg can be reached at sinberg@forward.com.
Barry S. Surman is associate publisher of the Forward, managing all business operations of the English and Yiddish-language publications and websites, including advertising sales, circulation and marketing.
Before joining the Forward in November 2010, Surman had worked as a journalist and business executive for several leading media organizations, as well as a strategy consultant and entrepreneur. He recently led a multimedia publishing venture and was vice president of classified advertising and vice president of new business and strategic development at the Daily News in New York. During an 11-year stint at The New York Times Company, he held a variety of management roles in sales and marketing, product development and management, and corporate strategy and acquisitions; he worked in – or closely with – business units in multiple media segments, including digital media, newspapers, magazines, radio and television broadcasting and production.
Earlier in his career, Surman was a management consultant with McKinsey & Company and a professional journalist.
His writing and photography have appeared in The New York Times, the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, Congressional Quarterly, Technology Review and other outlets.
Surman received an M.B.A. from Columbia Business School and graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he served as editor-in-chief of the student newspaper. He serves on its alumni board, as well as the board of Upwardly Global, a nonprofit organization that helps highly skilled immigrants, refugees and asylees reclaim their careers in the United States and helps American employers benefit from this hidden talent pool.
Barry S. Surman can be reached at Surman@forward.com.
Lillian Swanson, managing editor, has worked for the Forward since August 2008. Previously, she was the managing editor for the Rockford (Ill.) Register Star; online editor for the Detroit News and project director for NewsTrain, the Associated Press Managing Editor's national training program for front-line editors. For nearly two decades, she was an editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer, where she worked in such capacities as day city editor, features editor and assistant managing editor/ombudsman. She is a past president of the Pennsylvania Society of Newspaper Editors and a Poynter Institute Ethics Fellow. She was a 2011 Pulitzer Prize juror. She teaches editing, management and online skills at journalism conferences. She has a master's degree from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Lillian Swanson can be reached at swanson@forward.com.
Naomi Zeveloff joined the Forward as a news fellow upon her graduation from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism's political reporting program in May 2011. She previously worked at alternative newsweeklies in Colorado Springs, Denver and Dallas and covered the 2008 Democratic National Convention for The Colorado Independent, a political news site in Denver. Her Columbia University reporting capstone on economic resurgence in Ramallah was awarded the top thesis prize for her class. She can be reached at zeveloff@forward.com. Naomi Zeveloff can be reached at zeveloff@forward.com.
Teri Zucker is the copy editor of the Forward. She joined the staff in 2004, having served in similar capacities, and written short columns and features, for Soap Opera Digest and for the newsletter division of American Lawyer Media. Her creative nonfiction works have been published on such Web sites as The Poet's Haven, Absolute Write and Outcry Magazine. A graduate of CUNY's Brooklyn College, she contributed to the school's literary magazine, Riverrun. Teri Zucker can be reached at zucker@forward.com.
Copyright © 2012, Forward Association, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
