Guest Editor: Samuel G. Freedman
This fall, guest editors are helping to shape Forward Forum by commissioning opinion pieces. This week it?s Samuel G. Freedman, who writes the ?On Religion? column for The New York Times, following four years writing ?On Education.? A professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, he is the author of books including ?Letters to a Young Journalist? and ?Jew vs. Jew: The Struggle For the Soul of American Jewry.?
Hearing from ?The Other?: In the midst of the bitter controversy about a Muslim community center near Ground Zero, and the resumption of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, relations between America?s Jews and its Arabs and Muslims are being tested. In this section, we present the voices of five Americans ? Sunni, Shia, Christian, Muslim-Jewish; male and female, with ancestral roots in Pakistan, Iran, Syria and England ? voices of ?The Other,? who actually have so much in common with us.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
