Nora Berman is the Forward’s deputy opinion editor. You can email her or follow on Twitter @noraeberman.
Nora BermanDeputy Opinion Editor
By Nora Berman
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Opinion A Palestinian-American died in Israeli custody. American Jews help fund the unit responsible
An 80 year-old Palestinian-American, Omar Abdalmajeed As’ad, died cold and alone on Jan. 12, 2022. He died after being dragged from his vehicle, handcuffed, gagged and forced to lie on his stomach on frigid marble ground in below-freezing temperatures. Omar As’ad’s son told the Associated Press that his father was “the life of the party”…
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Opinion Whoopi Goldberg’s Holocaust comments were wrong — and I’m glad she said them
Whoopi Goldberg’s comments about the Holocaust could not have been more wrong, but I’m glad that she said what she said. In a cringe-inducing segment on The View, Goldberg, during a discussion of the banning of the book “Maus” by a Tennessee school board, said that “the Holocaust wasn’t about race.” Goldberg later apologized, and…
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Opinion How many Jews have to die for our allies to acknowledge the antisemitism Jews face?
If the circumstances weren’t so terrifying, the mental gymnastics of the last few days could almost be considered comedic. FBI Special Agent in Charge Matthew DeSarno described the nearly 11-hour hostage crisis that had unfolded at Congregation Beth Israel, a Reform synagogue in Colleyville, Tex. as “not specifically related to the Jewish community.” Even President…
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Opinion The Met is erasing the Sackler name. Tel Aviv University’s medical school should be next
In a joint statement, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Sackler family today announced that the museum will no longer bear the name of the disgraced pharmaceutical billionaires who helped fuel the opioid crisis for financial gain. Yemach shemo, as we say in Jewish tradition — may their name, and all the pain that…
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Opinion WATCH: Can you do better than comedian Alex Edelman at ‘Yiddish or Gibberish’?
On November 20th, comedian Alex Edelman paid a visit to the Forward’s Manhattan offices. We tested him on his Yiddish knowledge, learned about his unique bar mitzvah, and Alex teased his new solo show “Just For Us.”
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Opinion Alex Edelman crashed a white supremacist meeting. It left him grappling with his own Jewish identity
Alex Edelman’s new solo show, “Just For Us,” opens with a re-enactment of a white supremacist meeting. As he describes the Queens apartment in which he attended a 2017 gathering of neo-Nazis, he gets the audience laughing at both white supremacist “civility” and at the fact that he ended up being more talkative than two-thirds…
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Opinion A rabbi helped me understand the stigma addiction carries. ‘Dopesick’ makes his lessons even more essential
Waves of agony repeatedly knocked the breath out of me, as pressure built behind my eyes, producing visual auras that blurred my sight and made me nauseous. The pain was so unique, so all-encompassing, that I lost all rational capabilities, screaming and kicking as if possessed. My first such debilitating experience occurred when I was…
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Opinion New Hulu series ‘Dopesick’ reveals the evils of the Sackler family, but hides the real fight
I’ve lost too many people to opioids to be surprised by anything I saw in “Dopesick.” The eight episode miniseries by Hulu, premiering Oct. 13, dramatizes the criminally deceptive marketing behind OxyContin, Purdue Pharma and the Sackler Family and what led to a substance abuse crisis affecting millions of Americans. It is loosely based on…
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