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
Yes, Prime Minister
When the showdown ended this week between Yasser Arafat and his prime minister-designate, Abu Mazen, it was Arafat who blinked. With the full weight of the international community coming down on him, he was forced to back down and accept Abu Mazen’s nominee for security chief, Mohammed Dahlan. Arafat appears to have given up his…
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Opinion Expecting the Unexpected
You can never be sure what to expect next in the Middle East, but one thing is certain: It’s never going to be what you expected. Those who march in with the surest sense that they know what they’re doing are the ones most likely to be surprised, usually unpleasantly. Case in point: the unexpected…
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Opinion Gedenk — Remember
It was six decades ago, on April 19, 1943 — most Jewish communities will mark the anniversary on Tuesday, following the Hebrew calendar — that a group of young Jews in Nazi-occupied Warsaw began the hopeless act of resistance remembered as the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Numbering scarcely 750, armed mainly with pistols, they took on…
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Opinion What is the Jewish State to the Children of Israel?
Recently I was asked to give a talk to my Reform synagogue’s bar and bat Mitzvah class. My Brooklyn neighborhood of brownstones and apartment buildings, nestled on the edge of Prospect Park, is a liberal, gentrified enclave, with a handful of Conservative and Reform synagogues within a several block radius. My synagogue has more than…
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Opinion Hunger for Healing on a Visit to Haiti
It starts with a song. Soft at first, then louder, like slow-rolling thunder, gentle harmonies that keep time with the clapping of hands. Soon there will be time for serious talk — of politics, hard labor and the struggle to find food — but for now there is only the music. Every Haitian man, woman…
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Opinion The Cost of Winning Peace in Iraq
For all the talk about whether the United States should cede some control of rebuilding Iraq to the United Nations — which, out of self-interest, it probably should — peace will be extremely difficult to win without a serious economic commitment by the Bush administration. The recent experience in Afghanistan is a good reference point…
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Opinion How Soloveitchik Saw Interreligious Dialogue
In September 2000, a Baltimore-based institute for interfaith dialogue issued a statement titled “Dabru Emet: A Jewish Statement on Christians and Christianity.” The statement enumerated a series of theological beliefs shared by Jews and Christians, and insisted that such a statement was essential given the dramatic change during the last four decades in Christian attitudes…
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Letters April 25, 2003
Neo-Chasidism Aids Continuity Efforts I read with interest Allan Nadler’s stinging impressions and astute observations of a recent Jewish Renewal conference (“Can New Agers Channel the Old Rebbes’ Spirit?,” April 18). I would like to remind him that Jewish illiteracy is a far-reaching communal problem and is hardly limited to Jewish Renewal. The causes of…
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Opinion Mapping the Genes
This past Monday, April 14, a group of scientists at the National Institutes of Health in Washington announced the completion of one of the most ambitious scientific projects ever undertaken, the mapping of the human genetic code. The announcement came 50 years almost to the day after the structure of DNA was first described in…
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Opinion Polish Chief Is Iraq War’s Surprise Winner
The second Gulf war is not yet finished, but the Polish president, Alexander Kwasniewski, is already one of its winners. He has emerged alongside British Prime Minister Tony Blair as the European leader most visible in the military campaign. Poland’s place on the battlefield gave it new stature as a staunch ally of the United…
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Opinion No, War’s Opponents Need Not Apologize
What shall those of us who opposed the war now say and do, save mumble that it’s not yet quite over and that real peace and democracy are still iffy propositions? For the most part, the victory has been swift, comprehensive and without the tens of thousands of civilian Iraqi casualties that some of us…
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