In the Forward’s opinion section, you’ll find analysis and essays from diverse corners of the Jewish world.
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Opinion
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Opinion
A Crisis Foreseen
A current of astonishment has been rippling through the American consciousness over the past few weeks, since our simmering mortgage crisis suddenly erupted into a full-fledged, category-5 worldwide economic calamity. For years, the drama has been unfolding before our uncomprehending eyes, from the first drop in home sales in 2005 through the cascading foreclosures and…
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Opinion The Specter of the Sixties
As a historian of the 1960s, I feel a bit like Rip Van Winkle when I watch this year’s presidential campaign. John McCain has largely staked his candidacy on the hard lessons he learned during his ordeal in the Hanoi Hilton. McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin, accuse Barack Obama of waving “the white…
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Letters October 17, 2008
Learn Some Lessons From Gaza Withdrawal The Forward’s October 10 editorial, “Ehud Olmert’s Parting Words Dared To Offer Painful Truth,” ignores the consequences of Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines. The people of Sderot and the western Negev have been suffering ever since Israel withdrew all its civilians, soldiers and military bases from Gaza in…
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Opinion Return to Durban
Over the past year, citizens around the globe have joined hands in a series of events celebrating the 60th anniversary of a historic milestone, the signing in December 1948 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The treaty spelled out for the first time in history an agreed international standard by which governments may be…
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Opinion Who’s Sorry Now?
The seasons of the Jewish calendar have a way of surprising us, year after year, with their seeming relevance to life around us. Sometimes, though, the holidays have a bluntness that goes beyond poetry. It was in September 1998, on the eve of Yom Kippur, that Russia’s economy followed Thailand’s into meltdown and threatened global…
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Opinion McCain Would Restore America’s Standing
This year’s presidential campaign season has highlighted two very different approaches to issues such as Iran, Iraq, the peace process and our ongoing war on terror. Underlying the candidates’ Middle East policy differences are two divergent views regarding the sources of the regional rage aimed at America and, indeed, the entire West. The left’s explanations…
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Opinion Obama Is the Friend Israel Needs
When George W. Bush entered office, Israel was in the throes of the Second Intifada, but its strategic position within the Middle East was as strong as it has ever been. Israel was at peace with Egypt and Jordan. Its northern borders with Lebanon and Syria were relatively quiet, and more distant foes in Iraq…
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Opinion Olmert Speaks the Truth, 29 Months Too Late
Interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said only one wildly wrong thing in his September 29 interview with Yediot Aharonot, Israel’s largest-circulation newspaper: “The time has come to say these things.” Twenty-nine months after becoming Israel’s prime minister, quite literally on his way out the door — possibly to indictment on charges of corruption — now…
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Opinion Ehud Olmert’s Parting Words Dared To Offer Painful Truth
It is a rule of thumb in democracies that lame duck leaders should steer clear of bold new initiatives and sharp turns of policy. They’re supposed to sit tight until their elected successors can settle in and take the wheel. A decent respect for the opinions of the electorate demands that the voters’ decisions be…
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Opinion Preaching Politics
It is tempting to shrug off the campaign known as Pulpit Freedom Sunday as a futile attempt to change settled constitutional law. After all, among the thousands upon thousands of preachers who took to the pulpit across America on the final Sunday of September — and thousands of other clergy who addressed their congregations at…
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Opinion Why We Fear Sarah Palin
A friend of mine in the media covered the Republican National Convention and brought me back a souvenir: a navy blue yarmulke with “McCain ’08” printed on it in English and Hebrew. I guess there wasn’t time for the campaign to make them up with Sarah Palin’s name, too, which is a shame. With all…
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