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
Proposed Law Pays for Belief With Bias
The problem with the Workplace Religious Freedom Act is one of poor draftsmanship, not malice aforethought. Civil rights advocates and most religious groups are of one mind in supporting broader accommodation standards for religious dress, appearance or holy days. However, WRFA legislation, as it currently stands, is dangerously broad and would force the courts to…
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Opinion Shelter the Displaced Among Us
On Monday, residents of Chicago’s Cabrini-Green public housing development appeared in federal court, charging the Chicago Housing Authority with violating international human rights standards prohibiting forced evictions. For the first time, human rights laws on displacement are being used to contest the eviction of public housing residents in the United States. Now on trial is…
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Opinion Out of Egypt… and Into Gaza
In army staff colleges all over the world, the Egyptian-Israeli military agreement in the Sinai Peninsula is taught as the way two veteran belligerents that are tired of war but still don’t trust each other can best manage their cold peace. The solution is simple, if not ideal: They demilitarize the large, empty desert that…
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Letters June 18, 2004
U.S. Support for Israel Not Contingent on Gaza A June 4 news article quotes supporters of Prime Minister Sharon’s withdrawal plan as claiming that Israel’s failure to leave Gaza would set off a major clash between Israel and the United States (“U.S. Groups Warn Israel on Failure to Pull Out”). I and other representatives of…
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Opinion Let a Hundred Flowers Blossom
Contrary to the prevailing sentiment — and, for that matter, very substantial evidence — the sky is not falling down, nor is the world fatally ill. There is, in fact, cause for rejoicing. Please don’t misunderstand: I am not about to deny the dour assessment of where the world is these days. I will spare…
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Opinion Across the Atlantic
International summitry is a vexing mixture of overblown pomp and hard-nosed horse-trading, not always in equal measures, and observers must take care to separate substance from symbolism. And yet there are moments when the magnitude of the event speaks for itself, and the symbolism becomes the substance. The current round of summitry is such a…
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Opinion A Judicious Punt
The United States Supreme Court seems to have left just about everybody feeling grumpy following its narrowly cast ruling this week upholding the current wording of the Pledge of Allegiance. And that’s probably just as well. This was a case that nobody could win, and that’s how the court left it — for now, at…
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Opinion A Century After Herzl, Vienna Reimagines Zion
At the turn of the last century, a wave of culture washed over Vienna, carrying Central European society into modernity. The contribution of Austrian Jewry to this heritage was significant, from enlightenment to liberalism to art nouveau. It was in this milieu that the modern Jewish state was envisioned by Theodor Herzl, the 100th anniversary…
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Letters June 11, 2004
Vilna Community Calls For Help With Chabad A June 4 article on the Lithuanian chief rabbinate misses the most important point of the current crisis (“Rabbinical Turf Fight in Lithuania Spills From Shul Onto Front Pages”). This is not just a turf fight between two rabbis, nor is it solely a struggle between Chabad and…
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Opinion A Coalition Of the Eager
We have long since learned to swallow hard as the Israelis persist in policies that are ill-conceived and ill-executed, policies that threaten the entire Zionist enterprise. There are so many of these that we try to ignore and even justify — targeted killings, “collateral damage,” a fence that is in part a wall and that…
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Opinion Reagan
Ronald Reagan was an outsize figure on the world stage in his day, and remains so even now, a decade and a half after he passed from the public eye. That much is clear from the national outpouring of emotion that greeted his death last week. Reagan was a people’s president. He personalized the presidency,…
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Culture He works at a Holocaust museum by day. How’d he end up in ‘Marty Supreme’?
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Culture His mother is Israeli, his father is Palestinian. His life? Complicated.
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Opinion There’s a vicious antisemitic precedent for Trump’s demonization of Renée Nicole Good
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Film & TV Judd Apatow on why Mel Brooks’ influence ‘will last as long as our jokes’
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Opinion I was in a high school production of ‘Anne Frank’ — today in Minnesota, I feel her fear more than ever
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