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.
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.
This is the time of year when many of us in the Jewish world take stock of ourselves as individuals by assessing our accomplishments, reflecting upon our shortcomings and determining how to lead a more balanced, productive and purposeful life in the coming year. It is also a time when we contemplate where we stand…
Anti-Israel Problems At U.N. Unimproved Perspective and context are needed to fully assess Israel’s stature in the United Nations system. A September 16 editorial shortchanges both by taking an unwarranted swipe at our television ad on the U.N. and Israel (“UNimproved”). The nuanced ad was aimed primarily at the unique gathering of more than 170…
The staggering incompetence of this administration, which would not be quite so damaging were it not coupled with its wrongheadedness, has at last begun to register with the American people. The ratings of the president on a whole variety of measures, including assessment of how well he is performing and his basic trustworthiness, have tumbled;…
This day is the birthday of the world; this day places all the creatures of the world in judgment. The day is Rosh Hashanah, the New Year on the traditional Jewish calendar, which begins this coming Monday evening. The words — “This day is the birthday of the world” — will be recited at the…
It might be none of our business, technically speaking, how Ariel Sharon chooses to spend what’s left of his political career. He’s shown himself over the years to be a master of his country’s political system; he can probably figure out without our help how to maneuver his way through the unrest in his Likud…
American prisons have become prime recruiting grounds for incubating prospective terrorists. Radical Islamic inmates have established their own system of indoctrination and recruitment under the cover of religious practice, a phenomenon known as “prison Islam.” Inmates who practice prison Islam generally adopt Muslim names and establish a cohesive social group of fellow Muslim prisoners who…
So busy have we been worrying that women in Iraq and Afghanistan are losing ground to officially sanctioned Shariah courts with power to control much of what matters in their lives — marriage, divorce, support, inheritance — that we hardly noticed that the ground under as many as 150,000 Muslim women in Canada has been…
Israel’s leaders seemed to respond with gratification and discomfort in almost equal measures to the outpouring of warmth they received at the United Nations this month during the opening ceremonies of the world body’s 60th anniversary summit. It was a welcome they’d longed for, but it came with conditions. Prime Minister Sharon, whose very name…
In recent months, as efforts to stop the Gaza plan intensified, the settler movement and its Orthodox allies in America sought to broaden their appeal by painting themselves not merely as defenders of the faith, but also as champions of democracy. Even now, with the Gaza disengagement a fait accompli, opponents continue to attack the…
The death of Simon Wiesenthal this week at 96 reminds us of some indivisible moral truths bequeathed to us by the Holocaust: that freedom cannot exist without justice; that guilt and responsibility rest with each individual; that one person can make a difference. Wiesenthal emerged from the Nazi hell convinced of those principles, and he…
Anyone who followed media coverage of the Gaza disengagement last month had to be struck by the presence of Arab satellite television networks in and among the settlements. Tens of millions of viewers of Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya could watch live broadcasts in which reporters, usually Israeli-Arab journalists, stuck their microphones in the faces…
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