Scribe, the Forward’s curated contributor network, is a place for showcasing personal experiences and perspective from across our Jewish communities. Here you will find a wide array of reflections on Jewish issues, life-cycle events, spirituality, culture and more.
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You say matzah — and matzo and matzuh and matzee and more
Readers respond to our editor-in-chief’s column about a Passover copy-editing conundrum
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Global Neo-Nazism Is Increasing. Why Is The State Department Anti-Semitism Envoy Position Still Vacant?
As a former Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism (SEAS) for the State Department, I remain concerned that for the past 18 months, this post has been vacant. The absence of a Special Envoy makes the media’s role of spotlighting outbreaks of hatred and anti-Semitism even more vital. This is why I was deeply…
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Sarah Jeong’s Woke White Bashing Is A Slippery Slope
The firestorm over the New York Times’ hiring of tech writer Sarah Jeong as an editorial board member, and the revelation of Jeong’s past tweets mocking white people, has become another chapter in the ongoing drama of old social media posts being used to torpedo people’s careers. But this story has also brought the spotlight…
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Do We Really Want Our Jewish Daughters To Behave Like The Matriarchs?
As parents of young Jewish children, we’re taught to pray on Shabbat that our daughters be like Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah. It’s never occurred to me to question how literal we’re meant to be. I can’t say I’d wish the fate of any of our Matriarchs on the young women in my life, much…
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Why Are Jewish Studies Syllabi So White And Male?
What is on your syllabus this year? When I first inherited the syllabus for a survey in modern Jewish literature, the assigned readings suggested that everyone used to live in a little shtetl in Eastern Europe and speak Yiddish. Those who weren’t killed in the Holocaust had moved to New York where they lived secular…
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I Was A Trump Troll In 2016 — And I Owe Hillary Clinton An Apology
Dear Secretary Hillary Clinton, In the 2016 election, I voted for Donald Trump. I didn’t believe your warning about the Trump-Russia connection; I was wrong. @HillaryClinton I would like to apologize to you, wish I have listened to your warnings about Russia before I voted for Trump, you were right. — David Weissman (@davidmweissman) July…
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The Rebbe Met Me On The Way To His Grave
The day was hot and, after I had taken two subways and a bus from Manhattan to Cambria Heights (a largely black, middle-class neighborhood), my feet were tired. The connection in Jamaica to the Q84 bus was amazing, and in just about an hour and a half I was walking south, the two long blocks…
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Why I Call Out Israel’s Mistreatment Of Palestinians More Than Syria’s
Yesterday, a right-wing Zionist Twitter personality directed the following question at me and some others: 1000s of Palestinians killed, tortured, jailed in Assad’s Syria. Why the silence of many pro-Palestinian voices? Could it be that #Israel isn’t involved? Do these folks truly care about Palestinian welfare? Or are they just cynically using Palestinians as a…
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Israel Is Normalizing Gender Segregation
It had been 50 years since I last traveled to Israel. Much has changed in the start-up nation, including real toilets, delicious and plentiful food, new archaeological excavations and high-tech innovation. There have also been changes for Israeli women — though not all for the better. I recently joined a group of 60 Jewish women…
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I Used To Be Israeli Cartoonist Avi Katz’s Boss — And His Firing Was A Travesty
A version of this article originally appeared in Plus61J, an Australian-Jewish publication. In a democracy, the media is responsible for providing the public with the information and context it needs to make informed political decisions. Last week, when The Jerusalem Post terminated its relationship with veteran illustrator and political cartoonist Avi Katz, it revealed that…
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Justice Brandeis Was Right About Technology — 90 Years Before The Courts
Of the rulings that the Supreme Court handed down in its end-of-the-term rush, Carpenter v. United States (June 22, 2018) will prove to have the most far-reaching impact. The justices, by a 5-4 vote, held that the Constitution requires police to obtain a search warrant before gaining access to personal data that carriers collect from…
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As An Arab Jew, Israel Treats Me Like A Security Threat
I learned I was an Arab in the third grade. I was staring at a map of the world while waiting for the bus and noticed my last name emblazoned on a large body of water in Egypt. With the fervor of any young kid who sees their own name on something, I raced home…
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