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.
"Why I became the Forward’s Editor-in-Chief"
You are surely a friend of the Forward if you’re reading this. And so it’s with excitement and awe — of all that the Forward is, was, and will be — that I introduce myself to you as the Forward’s newest editor-in-chief.
And what a time to step into the leadership of this storied Jewish institution! For 129 years, the Forward has shaped and told the American Jewish story. I’m stepping in at an intense time for Jews the world over. We urgently need the Forward’s courageous, unflinching journalism — not only as a source of reliable information, but to provide inspiration, healing and hope.
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