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.
It may or may not be true that this election is the most important one in living memory, as some of its more heated partisans have taken to declaring. What’s beyond doubt is that it has been the most passionate — and the nastiest. The divisions in our body politic have deepened to the point…
After all the buildup, it’s tempting to view the Knesset vote approving Prime Minister Sharon’s Gaza-West Bank disengagement plan this week as an anti-climax. What more can be said of a political idea that already has been discussed half to death and isn’t even close to being implemented? For starters, there is the passage of…
A generation from now, will our children and grandchildren have affordable health care? Will they have good schools? How high will their taxes be? A lot is riding on the policies our government enacts today. Yet in the presidential campaigns, the tough choices are largely obscured in heated, sometimes misleading rhetoric. If you are searching…
In both Israel and America, minorities in the Jewish world are attempting to impose their will on the majority. The outcome of these efforts will do much to determine the future course of Jewish politics. In Israel, the settler movement is campaigning to block the acceptance of Prime Minister Sharon’s disengagement plan from Gaza. That…
It doesn’t really matter, and surely comes as no surprise, that substantial majorities in England, France, South Korea, Canada, Mexico, Japan, Spain and Australia think the war in Iraq is a mistake and that they prefer John Kerry to George Bush. In Mexico, 83% of the respondents to a rather remarkable poll say that our…
American Jews have a long tradition, going back to the early days of the Republic, of laying aside their differences in times of crisis and speaking out with one voice to defend their brethren in other lands. That tradition has become an 11th commandment in the half-century since the birth of the sovereign State of…
With relations between the Jewish and Presbyterian religious communities at their lowest point in decades, it’s hard to imagine what could have possessed the Presbyterian Church (USA) to decide this was the right time for a good-will visit with the leadership of Hezbollah. A 24-member delegation from the church met last Sunday in Lebanon with…
Outreach to Emigrés I read with great interest the first installment of the Forward’s series on Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union (“After 25 Years, Soviet Emigrés Still Strangers,” October 15). I look forward to reading the final two articles in this series. I hope that they strike a more balanced picture of the…
Every member of an ethnic, racial or religious minority in the United States understands the power and value of freedom and democracy. Americans understand that the right to vote ensures the equality of every person; democracy is a powerful force that commands respect for the rights of others and insists on the application of the…
I am a Washington lawyer who moved to Israel 20 years ago and has since lived in Jerusalem roughly half of the year. As you might well guess, I care deeply about the security of Israel. I am a member of Likud, the party of Prime Minister Sharon. Like a majority of Likud and unlike…
Everyone knows that the Jewish vote skews to the left. Among national religious groups, only black Protestants are more securely in the pocket of the Democratic Party. But did you know that Jews, unlike blacks, are actually becoming more liberal over time? That startling fact is reported in a new survey from the Pew Forum…
דעבאָראַ בראָדי, אַ לערערין פֿון קינדער מיט ספּעציעלע באַדערפֿענישן, האָט זיי געלאָזט אָנטאַפּן די זאַכן.