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 Wrecking Crew Does Medicare
In ramming their massive Medicare restructuring plan through Congress in the final days of the fall session, the Bush administration and its Republican congressional allies offered the nation a shocking display of ideological zealotry and bare-knuckles political ruthlessness. The bill passed by the two houses is — to the extent that anyone fully understands the…
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Opinion Beyond the Walls
This week’s ruling by a New York state appellate court, dismissing a woman’s suit against the Orthodox rabbis who allegedly dissolved her marriage behind her back, offers a sobering reminder of the deeper meaning of church-state separation. For all its manifold blessings, for religious communities in general and Jews in particular, our American system poses…
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Opinion Sanitizing Italian Fascism Sullies Fight Against Antisemitism
This past Tuesday the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee hosted Italy’s deputy prime minister, Gianfranco Fini. I didn’t attending the session. In plain terms, I boycotted it. I had no wish to play any part in sanitization ceremonies for fascists, neo-fascists and antisemites of all kinds. Fini is the leader of an important Italian…
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Opinion Federations Must Raise More Funds for Israel and Overseas Needs
When the Overseas Needs and Distribution Committee of United Jewish Communities meets on December 8 to decide how to allocate federation money, an unavoidable conclusion must be reached: The federation system has to raise more funds for overseas needs and continue to place Israel as its prime responsibility. To decide otherwise given today’s realities would…
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Opinion The Assyrian Test of Pluralism in Iraq
Although Iraq’s future remains uncertain, it can be said at least that the long Ba’athist nightmare is now over. Moderate and secular Islamic voices now have an opportunity to foster a new pluralistic political system which simultaneously acknowledges the fact that Iraq’s population is overwhelmingly Muslim and guarantees Christians the same legal and religious rights…
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Opinion History of Ford Due for ‘Tune-up’
This past week saw three exercises in revisiting history: the annual ritual, replete with conspiracy theories, of reexamining the Kennedy assassination; the Pulitzer Prize board reconsidering New York Times correspondent Walter Duranty’s prize for his discredited 1930s coverage of Soviet collectivization, and the Ford Foundation acknowledging that several of its pro-Palestinian grantees had channeled their…
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Letters November 28, 2003
Revisit Religious Texts On Abortion Argument Opinion writer Rabbi David Ellenson grievously misrepresents both how the Jewish religious tradition views partial-birth abortion as defined in the recently enacted federal law and what that law says (“Abortion Ban Degrades and Devalues Women,” November 21). It is indeed true that Jewish tradition considers a Jewish mother’s life…
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Opinion Abortion Ban Degrades And Devalues Women
President Bush recently signed a ban on so-called “partial birth abortions” into law. Enactment of this legislation marks a great victory for the religious right, and such passage surely reflects — as many commentators have pointed out — how successful the proponents of the ban have been in their campaign to restrict the scope of…
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Letters November 21, 2003
Little Frank a Class Act It was with great satisfaction that I read the November 14 profile of Frank Luntz (“Political Pollster Grows Into His Jewish Identity). I was Frank’s principal and teacher for seven years at religious school. I knew him and his family very well. Although not heavily observant, Frank always had a…
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Opinion Our Lives Of Sarah
A black-clad young man interrogated my wife and me in the foyer of Istanbul’s Neve Shalom synagogue, exactly three years ago. I thought about our visit to Turkey when Neve Shalom and another synagogue a few miles away, Beth Israel, were bombed this past Shabbat during the crowded morning services. At least 25 died. I…
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Opinion No Appeasement on Ashrawi Award
Australian Labor parliamentarian Michael Danby claims that it was only the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council that campaigned against the appropriateness of this month’s awarding of the Sydney Peace Prize to Palestinian activist Hanan Ashrawi, and that this campaign ended up being counter-productive (“Over the Top Protest Down Under,” November 14). He is wrong on…
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