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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Letters
July 11, 2008
Lithuania Has Earned Its Place in Europe Regarding Rabbi Andrew Baker’s July 4 opinion article “Europe’s Shameful Honoring of Vilnius,” I am amazed by the persistence of efforts to deny Lithuania its European identity. Through the centuries, my countrymen have struggled to stay in Europe and remain Lithuanians. History was brutal to us. Wars, occupations…
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Opinion A Severe Verdict That Didn’t Go Far Enough
The conflict now known as the Second Lebanon War began two years ago, on July 12, 2006, and ended 34 days later, on August 14. On September 17, following weeks of intense public anger over the war’s inconclusive ending, the Israeli Cabinet appointed a five-member government commission of inquiry into the war’s conduct, known, after…
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Opinion The Afghan Unraveling
Of all the strategically critical battle zones dotting our chaotic world, none presents a more depressing picture right now than Afghanistan. Depressing, that is, not because of what is happening there, but because of what is not happening. Afghanistan is not getting better. On the contrary. After more than six-and-a-half years of combat against primitively…
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Opinion A Vote for the Hungry
One of Washington’s nastiest legislative deadlocks came to an end last week when Congress voted convincingly to override a presidential veto and enact the five-year funding package known as the Farm Bill. The bill provides some $300 billion in food stamps, nutrition programs, foreign aid and conservation programs, along with perennially controversial growers’ subsidies. The…
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Opinion What Kind of Interviewer Confuses Hamas and Hummus?
They took us down winding stone stairs and through long corridors, ostensibly to have some make-up dabbed on our noses for the cameras, in fact to meet the interviewer and test his disguise. We confronted a tall, blond-ish man in his thirties, dressed in leather and studs, his face heavily powdered, his arms and chest…
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Opinion Time for a Miracle
Ehud Olmert’s stock with the Israeli public has fallen so low these days that virtually anything Olmert says or does is taken to be a cynical ploy to save his job. That’s a pity, because the Israeli prime minister has had some very good ideas of late. One of his best ideas surfaced in a…
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Opinion The Gift of Freedom
Most of us seldom give much thought to the Fourth of July. It’s one of the most important holidays on our national calendar, one of the very few that is observed simultaneously by all Americans without regard to faith, origin or regional whim. It is, some say, the only holiday specifically dedicated to celebrating this…
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Letters July 4, 2008
Not All Prisoners Are ‘Underbelly of Society’ Rabbi Lon Moskowitz is quoted in a June 13 article as saying, “We work with the underbelly of society, the spiritually void, the morally empty” (“Demand for Kosher Cuisine Swells Ranks of Jewish Prison Chaplains”). I am a 64-year-old inmate in the federal penal system, and I don’t…
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Opinion In the End, Only Candor Will Bring Peace
First, the bad news: As we all learned to say years ago — even before the year 2000 and the outbreak of the second intifada — Israel has no partner for peace. Or so, at least, Israelis believe. For Ariel Sharon, the absence of a credible partner was a strategic assessment, leading directly the calamitous…
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Opinion Europe’s Shameful Honoring of Vilnius
The European Union has designated Vilnius as the “European Capital of Culture” for 2009. It is a recognition Lithuania does not deserve. Vilnius, with its beautiful old town and venerable history, is without a doubt charming. Workers are busy restoring churches and palaces, and the first-time visitor is likely to be smitten by the postcard-perfect…
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Opinion A Synagogue Is No Place To Perform Richard Strauss
In 1933, composer Richard Strauss was appointed by Joseph Göbbels as president of the Reichsmusikkammer, or German State Music Bureau. In 1945, Strauss declared that the Allied bombing of the Hoftheater, his favorite opera house in Munich, was “the greatest catastrophe that has ever disturbed my life.” And now, six decades later, Strauss is being…
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