Dear Editor, In a recent Forward article, Adrienne Skolnik accused her former congregation of being unwelcome to Republicans. As a member of that same synagogue, I strongly disagree with her characterization of my community. While Skolnik claims that “for not conforming to a specific political groupthink, [she] was censored, silenced and squeezed out of a…
Dear Editor, I enjoyed Arno Rosenfeld’s December 4 article in these pages entitled “The owner of my favorite bagel shop is… Biden’s new COVID-19 czar?” about Jeff Zients, owner of the “Call Your Mother” bagel shop. I ate takeout from there just last week. Arno described it very fairly, I think, as a Jewish deli,…
Dear Editor, Just as Twitter and Facebook now put up warnings or don’t allow certain posts I think you need to create a policy to inform your readers about the bias of the people providing articles in the Forward. Mr. Hammer claims that Mr. Trump was the best president ever for Israel and that’s pretty…
To the editor: My morning started out very badly. I hadn’t slept well, and rose early for my first Zoom appointment of the day. As I gulped down my coffee, the day immediately became much worse. I opened my laptop to the Forward and read, “Why I am Risking a $15,000 fine by hosting a…
Dear Editor: In an Op-Ed published in The Forward, Avi Shafran of Agudath Israel denigrated the Judaism practiced by the overwhelming majority of Jews in New York. He seemed to be arguing that only Haredi Jewish leaders can speak for our city’s Jewish community. This could not be further from the truth. With COVID-19 once…
I am grateful to Rabbi Angela Buchdahl for her recent Yom Kippur sermon, which touched on the intersectionality of race, ethnicity and religion, and turned on its head the old notion that Jewishness is a race. Instead, Rabbi Buchdahl explained, we should take the more expansive view of Jewishness not as a race, but as…
Dear Editor, Abigail Pogrebin’s exploration of a group of rabbis’ conceptions of God is intriguing. Yet it leaves out some of the more transformative approaches, especially those deeply influenced by Eco-Judaism. In my new book, Dancing in God’s Earthquake: The Coming Transformation of Religion (Orbis, October 2020), I have explored one of the oldest biblical…
To the Editor: In response to “We are the Jewish AOCs,” I would like to say that I fully agree and add that I am here, too, and for decades have been speaking and writing on our behalf. The problem is not only for “the Jewish organizational world to see us [my emphasis] as leaders…
“Where are the Jewish leaders who speak for women?” Dr. Susannah Heschel asks this critical question in her July 27th opinion piece in these pages. She celebrates Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s recent speech on the House floor condemning Rep. Ted Yoho’s demeaning and insulting language and behavior which, unfortunately, is not unusual for women – especially…
On Sunday, instead of building our family sukkah, instead of preparing for my daughter’s upcoming Bat Mitzvah, instead of doing the work that I needed to catch up on after traveling last week to present at the Hannah Arendt Center Conference on Racism and Antisemitism at Bard College, I spent the day fielding calls, texts,…
To the Editor, As the assistant director of the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities at Bard College, I read Batya Ungar-Sargon’s recent column with dismay. She wrote: “But not one of my fellow speakers said a word. Two days later, I have not received a single note acknowledging what happened, which leaves me…
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