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.
Opinion
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Opinion
High Holy Days Ticket Prices Are Costing Community
Before Christmas and Easter, many churches display signs that say “Come Worship With Us.” The most important Jewish holidays, by contrast, are just about the only times when Jews cannot walk freely into temples and synagogues to worship. Unaffiliated Jews can be charged between $200 and $400 for the privilege of attending High Holy Day…
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Opinion Taking Tehran at its Word
Shortly after the immediate and strong international reaction to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s comment that Israel should be “wiped off the map,” his foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, indicated that this position was nothing new: The Islamic regime had always viewed Israel that way, ever since the Khomeini revolution in 1979. Mottaki is correct. From the…
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Opinion Blaming Women Begets No Babies
In the olden days, Jewish offspring were begat by their fathers, seemingly without intervention by women. The Bible is full of begotten children. For the most part, the Bible has only two reproductive narratives: long lines of uninterrupted male begetting and women suffering from infertility. Women seemed to have all sorts of trouble having babies,…
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Letters November 4, 2005
Magazine a Source of Connection for Youth Rapper 50 Shekel is an embarrassment to the Jewish community (“Racy Pics Make Rapper Blush,” October 28). Heeb magazine, on the other hand, is a blessing to the Jewish community. As a college student, I have seen many of my fellow students who claim to have a Jewish…
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Opinion From Baghdad to Beirut, Arab Leaders Being Held To Account
Long home to farfetched conspiracy theories and a political culture of victimization, the Arab world is now being swept by a new emphasis on accountability. While commentators and pundits debate the merits, drawbacks and sincerity of the Bush administration’s drive for democracy, events across the Middle East suggest that the relationship between rulers and the…
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Opinion Sukkah in the Storm
The sukkah, the fragile hut that gives the Sukkot holiday its name, could be the most ambivalent symbol in all of Jewish tradition. Custom dictates that we spend a week each fall dwelling — or at least taking meals — in a roofless shack, open to the heavens. It is, we are taught, a time…
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Opinion Serving Justice By Not Publicly Serving Justices
There are no daily front-page stories. There are no slick public relations campaigns touting or trashing potential candidates. And there are no public hearings on nominees’ fitness to serve. In Israel, the selection process for new Supreme Court justices unfolds behind closed doors, and information made public — even about the identity of the candidates…
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Opinion Facing the Unresolved Issue in Interfaith Dialogue
Built in the year 81 C.E., the Arch of Titus stands dramatically in the Roman Forum, commemorating Titus’s military triumph over the Jews and the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem 11 years earlier. A bas-relief on the inside of the arch depicting Roman soldiers carrying the spoils of victory highlights the massive menorah. Contemplating…
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Letters October 28, 2005
Fund Ethiopian Efforts After years of stonewalling and foot-dragging by the government of Israel and the Jewish Agency, it will take deeds, not more words, in order for success and not “the sad reality” to be the hallmark of Ethiopian Jewish aliyah (“Poverty and Crime Rates Reveal Israel’s Failure To Absorb Ethiopian Immigrants,” October 21)….
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Opinion In the Wake of A Sinking Ship
In November 2004, just after the reelection of President Bush, I wrote that the Republicans are “off to such a furious start that their excess may presage their early demise. Simply stated, the likelihood is that the Republicans will over-reach. The early indications are that they have not merely been buoyed by their victories, but…
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Opinion In Our Time
Whatever else might be said about it, the Roman Catholic Church must be deemed one of the wonders of human civilization. In continuous operation for two millennia, it remains among the world’s most powerful institutions, claiming 1 billion followers, one-sixth of all humanity, in a tightly organized community of belief and influence that reaches into…
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