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
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Once upon a time when the sun never set on the British Empire, the crown jewel in the imperial crown was a country called India. There were many agricultural products that the empire derived from India, including opium. When the power loom for weaving textiles made its appearance, the native Indians started up a lively…
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Opinion The Power of a Weak Dollar
For many years, Uncle Sam was the big buyer in the world market. In part this was due to a “strong dollar ” A big buck could buy foreign goods inexpensively. It was also due to the outsourcing of production in countries with cheap labor. The finished product found a heavy market in the United…
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Opinion The World Can Live With a Nuclear Iran
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad looks and sounds as if he is in a panic — and the Iranian president, on tour in New York this week, has very good reason to be. Israel, which Ahmadinejad regards as his country’s great enemy, has just carried out what seems to be a very successful strike against an important Syrian…
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Letters September 21, 2007
Israel’s Debt to Sudan The suggestion by opinion writers Stephen Solarz and Rafael Medoff that Israel should welcome Darfur refugees for humanitarian reasons is a good one (“Create a Temporary Israeli Haven for Darfur Refugees,” September 7). I would suggest, however, that apart from humanitarian considerations, this would allow Israel to recognize its 25-year-old debt…
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Opinion Syrian Airspace
Only time will tell whether the alleged Israeli air attack on Syria two weeks ago was reckless bravado, a cynical blow to peace or a bold strike that makes the Middle East and all of us a bit safer. From the available evidence, though, the smart money is on bold and safer. It’s true that…
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Opinion Atonement and Food Stamps
The Talmud teaches us that we must not judge our fellows until we have come to stand in their place. That’s an important lesson to remember whenever we participate in the primal human ritual of repentance and forgiveness. We are obligated to atone and to ask forgiveness for the wrongs we have done to others….
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Opinion I Will Stand Up for the Muslim Brotherhood
The first time I went to interview the Muslim Brotherhood, in 1995, an officer manager at their headquarters on the Nile opened the door with one hand and gave me a headscarf to wear with the other. The second time I went to interview the Muslim Brotherhood, in 2005, no headscarf awaited me. I was…
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Opinion Let’s Put Out A Communal Welcome Mat
I am both an insider and an outsider in the Jewish world. Because of my last name, Jews accept me warmly around the world and across the Jewish spectrum. But I am also an outsider. My Jewish education was limited as a child. I did not participate in communal or institutional Jewish life. The concept…
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Opinion Every Good Under the Sun Must Be Paid For
I’m always stirred by the seemingly primitive features of Jewish religious observance. On Yom Kippur, celebrated this Shabbat, we read from the book of Leviticus about the sending away of a sacrificial goat to the Judean wilderness, bearing to its death the combined sins of the people. Judaism’s insistence on animal sacrifice must strike many…
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Opinion Going East by Going West
Ever since mankind discovered that the Earth is round, daring souls have attempted to get to the east by going west and vice versa. Columbus was one of them. When in 1492, he sailed the ocean blue, he was looking for a western route to India. There was a lively trade between Europe and India,…
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Opinion Where Senility Is No Barrier to High Office
The news from Israel has a surreal quality these days, half farcical, half simply bizarre. Last week, Christian crosses and the words “Hitler is the messiah, long live Jesus” were spray-painted on the walls of the Pahad Yitzhak synagogue in Eilat and on the second day of Rosh Hashanah, swastikas were painted on the walls…
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Yiddish שפּילן מיט פֿײַל־און־בויגן און אַנדערע ל״ג־בעומר־מנהגיםPlaying with bows and arrows and other Lag BaOmer shtetl customs
געוויסע עקספּערטן האַלטן, אַז מע דאַרף באַטראַכטן ל״ג־בעומר ווי אַ פֿרילינגדיקן מײַ־פֿעסטיוואַל
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News ‘Don’t give up on us now’: Israel peace summit convenes thousands to aim for elusive progress
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Fast Forward A GOP lawmaker tried to put a Holocaust denier on New Hampshire’s Holocaust education board
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Fast Forward NH lawmaker reprimanded for ‘final solution’ joke aimed at Jewish colleague