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 Dumbing Down Of Communal Identity
The call for “Jewish continuity,” sounded by American Jewish communal leaders more than a decade ago as an antidote to rising intermarriage rates and other signs of weakening identity has spawned a veritable industry aimed at making American Jews more Jewish. There has been an ever-more impressive array of endeavors to promote day schools, send…
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Opinion Amend International Law To Allow Preemptive Strike on Iran
Intelligence reports about Iran’s capacity to produce nuclear weapons aimed at Israel are becoming ominous. Unless diplomatic pressure causes the Iranian mullahs to stop the project, Iran may be ready to deliver nuclear bombs against Israeli civilian targets within a few short years. Some Iranian leaders, such as former president Hashemi Rafsanjani, have made it…
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Opinion We Are All Pagans Now
The return of the Olympic games to Greece, where they originated as a pagan festival honoring the king of the gods, Olympian Zeus, has had neo-pagans all worked up and excited. The games, which got started in 776 B.C., were banned by the Christian emperor Theodosius in 393 BCE on the grounds that they were…
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Opinion When Time Isn’t on Israel’s Side
Some 20 years ago, Ehud Olmert — now deputy prime minister of Israel, recently mayor of Jerusalem, back then a rising star in Israel’s right-wing firmament — was among the principal speakers at a United Jewish Appeal event in Silverado, a lovely retreat center in northern California. One day, the two of us took a…
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Letters August 20, 2004
History of U.S. Zionism Kudos on the very interesting August 6 article on the history of the organized American Jewish community (“Hearts Ungovernable”). The Forward mentions the American Jewish Congress of the World War I, but does not mention the American Jewish Conference of World War II. It met at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New…
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Opinion Jimmy’s Problem, and Ours
Every great movement for social change has its pivotal events, iconic moments of terrible clarity that capture the nation’s attention, shift the momentum and alter the course of the struggle. The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire was a turning point in the rise of the labor movement. The triple murder of the three civil-rights workers, James Chaney,…
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Opinion Studying Our Genes
This week’s issue of the Forward includes the 10th-anniversary edition of our annual supplement on Jewish genetic research. It’s a feature that provides a unique service both to the Jewish community and to the broader society, and we’re proud to be able to offer it. The scientific field of Jewish genetics doesn’t receive much public…
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Opinion An Intelligent Choice to Lead The New CIA?
I have never met Republican Rep. Porter Goss, nor have I ever spoken with him. Still, as the author of two books on convicted spy Jonathan Pollard, the fact that Goss could be the new director of the CIA gives great me cause for concern. First of all, let me say that I am not…
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Opinion Arab Misunderstanding of Israel Moves From the Center to the Periphery
Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail recently accused Israel of fomenting the violence in Darfur from its “base” in… Eritrea. Evidently he was undeterred by the 600 miles of inhospitable desert that Tel Aviv’s intrepid agents would have had to negotiate between Eritrea on Sudan’s east and Darfur in the country’s west. Or, for that…
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Opinion Alon’s New Hat
The naming of Alon Pinkas as the new chief executive officer of the American Jewish Congress breaks just about every rule in the unwritten code of Israel-Diaspora relations. It puts an Israeli citizen at the helm of a venerable Jewish agency that prides itself on its distinctly American identity. It puts the organization on a…
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Opinion Digging Up the Bible
With Jerusalem’s future forever a subject of contention, many who care passionately about the Golden City have missed the new debate that has emerged over its ancient past. A new cadre of Bible scholars and archaeologists, some with an overtly political agenda, has argued that the great Israelite kingdom, depicted in the books of Samuel,…
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