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
Uncivil Rhetoric, Uncivil Realities
There’s anger in the air, considerable anger. No great surprise: At the end of October, there were nearly 16 million unemployed persons in the United States; a third had been unemployed for more than six months; there are six times as many job-seekers as there are job openings. Another 11.7 million people are either working…
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Opinion Benjamin Netanyahu: Israel’s Man of Mystery
Indications are growing that Benjamin Netanyahu, champion of the Israeli right, might just be the prime minister who makes history by leading his country, Nixon-to-China style, into lasting peace agreements with its neighbors. Fans and critics alike point to his dramatic gestures in recent months — embracing Palestinian statehood and freezing settlement construction — as…
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Letters December 18, 2009
Talk to Me Before You Label Me, Says Chelsea Clinton’s Future Uncle Your December 11 article “Chelsea Clinton Will Join Diverse Mezvinsky Clan” briefly discussed me (an uncle of Clinton’s new fiancé) and my views regarding Israel. You could easily have contacted me and asked me directly about my views but chose not to do…
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Opinion The Public Obligation
As of this writing, it seems as if the “public option” in health care reform may go the way of other well-intentioned but ultimately futile attempts to persuade America to live up to its promise. In other words, nowhere. As of this writing, the Senate appears to have pushed aside the idea of a government-run…
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Opinion The Minister of Halacha?
The initial statement was troubling. The subsequent clarification didn’t help. Israel’s justice minister, Yaakov Ne’eman, may not be hastening the “Talibanization” of his country, as some allege, but his assertion that Jewish law should be privileged and restored to its “former glory” bespeaks an attitude that can have no place in the governance of a…
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Opinion Israeli Mafia Returns to LA? Did It Ever Leave?
An October 29 shooting attack at a Los Angeles synagogue, initially thought to be a hate crime or terrorist attack, is in fact being investigated by L.A. police as an Israeli organized crime hit. The Jerusalem Post broke the story on December 1, but inexplicably buried the lede in the middle of a feature-y interview…
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Opinion The N.Y. Times and the Jewish Nationalism Question. Bring Your Own Elephant.
The New York Times touched off a lively little debate Wednesday morning, probably unwittingly, with an article from its Jerusalem bureau that was headlined “Jewish Nationalists Clash With Palestinians.” You don’t see the term “Jewish nationalist” very often these days, except in historical discussions of Zionism and its attempt to rebuild the Jewish nation. Suddenly,…
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Opinion Our Convenient Truths Are Not the Whole Truth
Thinking about the Middle East is a sure-fire way to induce a headache — and, if you’re more than a disinterested witness, a heartache, too. Wise people will, therefore, seek to avoid thinking, will instead take such new information as comes their way and immediately squeeze it into familiar categories, categories that we have, over…
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Opinion How Hanukkah Came to the White House
The news that President Obama is cutting the guest list for the annual White House Hanukkah party from 800 to 400 lit up cyberspace over the past couple weeks. “More Proof Obama Hates Jews,” read one dispatch that crossed my desk. Other responses were equally hostile. Overlooked in the frenzy over whether the president was…
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Opinion There Is No Alternative to Day Schools
The day school movement is embattled. After significant growth over the past two decades, overall enrollment at non-Orthodox day schools has taken a slight downward turn in the past several years. Complaints that day-school education is just too expensive have surged. Leading philanthropists insist they get more bang for their buck from Birthright Israel, or…
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Opinion Frisco Film Fest Fuels a Family Feud
We Jews often pride ourselves on our devotion to memory. It’s a trait that unites Jewish communities everywhere. In the San Francisco Bay Area, for example, Jews are haunted these days by memories of a film screened there this past summer about a 23-year-old American woman who was killed in Gaza in 2003. Some members…
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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