New Voices
In 1974, the Jewish Daily Forward, better known as the Forverts, moved from its historic (now landmark) building on East Broadway to its current, modest midtown location. In many ways, this shift marked the end of an era. Within a decade, the Forward had cut back to a weekly publication schedule, and an English version of the paper was founded in 1990. The Yiddish language and culture that had once been the life-blood of American Jewry had become a thing of the past and American Jews were basking in a newfound sense of belonging.
For more than a century, the Forward witnessed and recorded the American Jewish experience, a story that comes to life in the newly released A Living Lens: Photographs of Jewish Life from the Pages of the Forward. Edited by the Forward's Arts and Culture editor, Alana Newhouse, the 350-page photographic account culled from the Forward's treasure trove of photo archives includes images of the news-breaking and the everyday, from poverty stricken immigrants wheeling pushcarts to the stars of Yiddish vaudeville and Hollywood, from Jewish labor union marches to refugee Holocaust survivors and Soviet dissidents. The book also includes images of Jewish life outside the United States, evidence of the American Jewish community's continued ties to world Jewry and the Jewish State.
Interspersed throughout are brief essays, observations on various aspects of Jewish life, many of them written by noted intellectuals and scholars in their respective fields, which provide insight and eloquent commentary that nicely complement the visuals. In particular, essays like Leon Wieseltier's "Holy Hollywood," and Jenna Weismann Joselit's "Upward into America" probe beneath the surface of glossy photographs to reveal some of the deeper issues and conflicts at the heart of the American Jewish experience.