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
I’d Rather Fight Than Switch
Farewell, Forward readers. Owing to the tolerant and genuinely pluralistic editorship of J.J. Goldberg and Oren Rawls, I’ve had the privilege these past five years of speaking to this newspaper’s mostly liberal readership. I have done my best to articulate a religiously and politically conservative worldview rarely heard in the Jewish community. Now the time…
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Opinion Al Qaeda’s Kindness
Events in the Middle East frequently defy logic, but rarely is a development as unexpected as the recent broadside by Al Qaeda against Iran and its Shi’ite allies for — of all things — spreading the “lie” that Israel was responsible for the September 11 attacks. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the deputy commander of Al Qaeda, made…
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Opinion The Kadish Connection
Americans slept safer in their beds last week after the FBI, in a daring raid on a New Jersey old-age home, nabbed an 84-year-old retiree accused of having spied for Israel a quarter-century ago. The suspect, Ben-Ami Kadish, a former engineer with the U.S. Army, reportedly confessed that he had checked out some 50 to…
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Letters May 2, 2008
‘Peoplehood’ Has Utility As a Descriptive Term The descriptor “peoplehood,” as a term purporting to collect all Jews under one umbrella, always seemed like a hopeful way of asserting that I have something in common with a Satmar Hasid in Kiryas Joel (“Peoplehood: There’s No There There,” April 25). Now Arts & Culture columnist Jay…
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Opinion Enough Misguided Maligning of China
It is fitting that Jews should speak up against injustice, whoever its victims may be, and rise to their defense. With a history that includes centuries of religious persecution, Hitler’s Final Solution and repeated assaults on the State of Israel, Jews have a special affinity for the victims of prejudice and genocidal violence. Lately, though,…
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Opinion The Germans Got It Right With One Call
My parents, both Holocaust survivors, were indignant that the German government dared to presume that it could offer monetary compensation for human lives and suffering, so they applied for no restitution payments. Over time, my parents’ moral rectitude about dealing with the devil was softened by economic necessity. They came across a display ad in…
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Opinion With Synagogues in Jeopardy, It’s Time To Talk About Tithing
After winning a record 74 consecutive games on the television game-show Jeopardy, Ken Jennings of Murray, Utah, tithed $2.5 million in prize money to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Mormons like Jennings, as well as Baptists and many people of other faiths, proudly tithe to their churches. But we Jews, we don’t…
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Opinion What Would They Write About Us Today?
This week, this column celebrates its 18th anniversary. Or, since columns, lively as they may be, are essentially inert, their author does the celebrating. I’ve been rummaging around in columns past, and while many are tightly tied to then-current events, there are more than a few that continue to resonate. Here is one such: In…
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Opinion How Jimmy Carter Almost Derailed Peace With Egypt
The unique synthesis of activism, idealism and ignorance that drove Jimmy Carter to meet with Hamas in late April is nothing new for the former president. It dates back to well before his 2006 book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid” — all the way back to his time in office, when he nearly derailed the incipient…
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Opinion Will Smith’s Lesson for Jerusalem
Hollywood star Will Smith is reportedly planning to make a movie on Taharqa, a black warrior king from Nubia who ruled over Egypt during the 7th-century BCE. The film is likely to focus on issues of black pride, but if Smith and his scriptwriters do their homework well, “The Last Pharaoh” should also be of…
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Opinion The Truth of the Matter
Harvard’s motto is “Veritas” — truth. The motto of Brandeis is “Truth Unto Its Innermost Parts”; Yale’s is “Lux et Veritas,” light and truth (and the same for the University of Indiana); and Johns Hopkins goes with “Veritas Vos Liberabit,” the truth shall make you free. My favorite, however, is the motto of Harry Potter’s…
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Fast Forward A whites-only, no-Jews community says it’s found a legal loophole. A Jewish lawmaker in Pennsylvania wants to close it.
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Culture Why do Jews eat Chinese food on Christmas?
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Opinion What if Donald Trump puts his name on the US Holocaust Memorial Museum?
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