In the Forward’s opinion section, you’ll find analysis and essays from diverse corners of the Jewish world.
To pitch an opinion piece, email our Opinion Editor, Talya Zax.
Opinion
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Opinion
Commitment to Renewal
Even if the reasons for doing so are prosaic, there’s a welcome symbolism in the decision by the Jewish Federations of North America to move its annual General Assembly from Disney World to the city ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. Federation officials say that there wasn’t enough space in Orlando to accommodate the thousands of expected…
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Opinion The Grand Old Party’s Nor’easter
Last spring, when Arlen Specter defected to the Democratic Party, the Republicans didn’t only lose their party’s sole Jewish senator. They also lost one of only four remaining Northeastern Republicans in the Senate. The conventional wisdom at the time was that the GOP was quickly becoming the party of the South and “flyover country.” Democrats…
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Opinion The Wiesenthal Center Digs Itself Deeper
When I read that famed architect Frank Gehry was pulling out as designer of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s planned Museum of Tolerance in downtown Jerusalem, my thoughts immediately took me back to the site. Almost a year ago, I stood there with a group of rabbinical students and other young Jewish leaders to voice our…
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Opinion War on Internet Is a Fight the Rabbis Can’t Win
Are Israel’s Haredi religious authorities losing control of their followers? In December, leading Israeli rabbis launched a new push to curtail Internet use among ultra-Orthodox Jews, emphasizing that their longstanding ban on Web surfing applied to sites geared toward the Haredi community as well. They threatened stricter penalties than ever before for those who disobeyed….
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Opinion So Tell Me, Rabbi, When Can I Criticize?
You probably know this one: Yankel the beggar goes to the rabbi and pleads for a handout. “Please, Rabbi,” he says, “I haven’t eaten in days.” “Poor fellow,” the rabbi replies. “Here’s a ruble. Go buy yourself a meal.” An hour later, the rabbi is walking past the tavern and sees Yankel eating a big…
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Letters February 5, 2009
Hateful Book Violates Jewish Values It is shocking that a book suggesting the biblical imperative of “Thou Shalt Not Murder” only applies to “a Jew who kills a Jew” is widely available in religious bookstores in Israel and has been enthusiastically endorsed by several prominent rabbis (“Rabbinic Text or Call to Terror?” January 29). The…
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Opinion What Haiti Requires of Us
And now Haiti. The Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 — an earthquake under the ocean, generating a tidal wave that in some places was a hundred feet high — left 226,000 dead. In Haiti, it is too soon to know the final tally; too many bodies are still buried under the rubble. Current estimates are…
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Opinion Meeting Benedict: A Rabbi Talks With the Pope
The walk through the papal apartments led through several long rooms, each richly decorated in antiques and hangings and paved with marble. My journey to the heart of Catholic Christianity might have been expected to have precipitated long thoughts on history and family: What would the first Jacob Neusner, my grandfather from the town of…
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Opinion Is Danny Sanderson of ‘Poogy’ Fame Channeling Eddie Cantor? You Decide
This is a clip from an early concert of Lahakat Kaveret, often known as the Poogy Band. There are four songs here: “Hamakolet”, “Magafayim shel Baruch”, “Goliath” and “Natati Lah Hayai”. It’s fabulous viewing if a) this was ever your thing and/or b) your Hebrew is good. But wait: There’s an eerie aspect, as I’ll…
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Opinion Separating Wheat From Dreck: I Defend a Principled Hawk from a Chickenhawk
For the past few months I’ve been getting email blasts several times a day from someone named Dan Friedman (no connection to the Forward’s arts & culture editor), ultra-right email posts with short, pithy barbs aimed at Obama (whom he calls BHO), liberals and the Israeli peace camp. He’s pretty far over the line, but…
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Opinion The New Passion of Bernard-Henri Lévy: Defending Pope Benedict XVI
The popular and ever-elegantly coiffed French moral philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy has weighed in at Huffington Post with a passionate defense of Pope Benedict XVI from the many accusations (including a few of my own) that he’s no friend of the Jews. It seems to me he makes a few points worth considering. As soon as…
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Culture ‘My mayor Muslim, my bagel Jewish’ — the Knicks chant capturing New York’s soul
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Opinion The Iran war ended terribly for the US, and even worse for Israel
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Opinion Cultural boycotts of Israel just reached peak absurdity
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Film & TV In ‘Disclosure Day,’ Steven Spielberg finds himself at odds with Jewish thought about aliens
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Fast Forward In Britain, a Jewish Culture Month aims to move the conversation beyond Oct. 7
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News This Jewish activist was arrested and deported for her book ‘Lesbian Love.’ 100 years later, will NYC apologize?
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Culture Ever the restless spirit, Tel Aviv-born architect and designer Ron Arad is still reinventing himself and his art
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News New Jewish-Arab political party debuts in Israel, aiming to topple Netanyahu