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
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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Letters April 25, 2008
Make Seder for Adults I enjoyed the East Village Mamele’s April 11 Fast Forward column, but it raises some issues that she probably did not intend to raise (“A Kid-Friendly Seder”). Being a regular at our local Conservative synagogue and having belonged to several other synagogues over the years, I have become very concerned about…
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Opinion Diplomacy, Carter-Style
Amateur historians like to say that Jimmy Carter is much better as an ex-president than he was as president. That gets his presidency about right; he’s usually ranked near the bottom, slightly ahead of Millard Fillmore but trailing Herbert Hoover. The assessment, however, is too kind to the Carter ex-presidency. During nearly three decades as…
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Opinion What it means for Jews when Trump administration officials misquote the Bible
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Yiddish לזכּרון יעוואַ ביידער, דער געטרײַער אלמנה פֿונעם שרײַבער חיים ביידערRecalling Yeva Beider, devoted widow of the writer Chaim Beider
נאָך איר מאַנס טויט אין 2003 האָט זי געהאָלפֿן אַרויסגעבן זײַן לעקסיקאָן פֿון די ייִדישע שרײַבער אין ראַטן־פֿאַרבאַנד.