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
Preconditions for a Problematic Partner
In early February 2006, just days after Hamas won the Palestinian elections, the Olmert government successfully negotiated with the Quartet (the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia) a framework for dealing with the Islamist movement. Any Hamas-led Palestinian government would have to fulfill three conditions before Israel and the international community would deal…
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Opinion Being Ourselves By Being For Others
There is a Hasidic allegory in which a rebbe explains why the stork, known in Hebrew as the hasidah, is characterized as a non-kosher animal. At the outset of his homily, the rebbe observes that the stork is labeled the hasidah (the merciful one) because the kindness and compassion this animal displays for its own…
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Opinion Condi’s Shocking Speech
I’ve heard and read many speeches on the Arab-Israeli conflict. Those made by well-known, hostile critics of Israel always caused me great pain by their use of hyperbole, absurd analogy and falsehoods. But I was not prepared for a speech by an American secretary of state with those very attributes, such as the keynote address…
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Opinion The Trumpets Did It
Not too many years ago, corporal punishment of students by their teachers was common. A popular song recalled, “School days, school days. Golden rule and school days. Reading and writing and ’rithmetic, taught to the tune of the hickory stick.” Since the 1970s, however, corporal punishment in any form has been outlawed in 28 states….
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Opinion The Fantasies of Avigdor Lieberman
Some people going through a reasonably civilized divorce confess to an unsettling fantasy. While they do not wish their partner ill, it would be nice if somehow that partner would just disappear. Cease to exist. Be utterly pulverized (albeit painlessly, to be sure). See the lightning storm up ahead? Maybe you’ll get lucky and the…
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Letters October 20, 2006
In the Beginning… BOOM! Howard Smith’s interesting article “In the Beginning, 13.73 Billion Years Ago” (Forward, October 13) argues that science and religion should be partners rather than adversaries. Some decades ago, I heard of a group of professionals who put this into ritual practice. At the Simchat Torah readings of the Creation, after the…
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Opinion Human Rights in Wartime
Liberals and human rights activists are loudly decrying the new anti-terrorism measure signed into law this week by President Bush as a historic assault on the American tradition of justice and fair play — “one of the worst civil liberties measures ever enacted in American history,” in the words of the American Civil Liberties Union….
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Opinion A ‘Lobby’ Prof Asks: Can We Talk?
The brouhaha over the dark power of the “Israel Lobby” has flared into a full-scale intellectual prairie war in the past few weeks. And boy, the fireworks couldn’t be more riveting. The debate, long simmering in dank corners of Paris and London, entered the American mainstream last March with the publication of a paper by…
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Opinion In the Beginning, 13.73 Billion Years Ago
Since the start of the Hebrew month of Elul in late August, Jews have been examining the year past in search of lessons to apply to the year ahead. Now, as the holiday season winds to a close, the weekly cycle of Torah readings offers another opportunity to examine the past as we return to…
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Opinion Don’t Play Politics With Antisemitism
Heading into the home stretch of another bitterly fought national election, partisans on both sides aren’t pulling any punches. Democrats charge Republicans with incompetence, corruption and failed leadership. Republicans call Democrats ready to cut and run on Iraq, weak on security and, of course, tax-and-spend liberals. Name-calling and partisan attacks may turn the public off…
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Opinion Contemplate the Contradictions and Complexities
A provocative challenge to religious conservatives has been lodged by Time magazine blogger Andrew Sullivan in his new book, “The Conservative Soul: How We Lost It, How to Get It Back.” A very publicly gay, self-identified conservative and former New Republic editor, Sullivan thinks conservatism in general and the Republican Party in particular have been…
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