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.
Opinion
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Opinion
Then They Came for the Romani Women
I hear stories of forced sterilization experiments on a daily basis. I hear frail, old voices trying to explain what happened to them so many years ago at the hands of Nazi doctors. These Holocaust survivors struggle to describe the indescribable, fighting to recollect the horrific experiments to which they were subjected so that they…
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Opinion Saudi Schools Keep Sowing Seeds of Hate
Meeting with leaders of the American Jewish Committee in New York last September, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal acknowledged a problem with his country’s schoolbooks, and he assured us that steps would be taken to rewrite them. He asserted, as he has in interviews with American media, that the problematic passages are limited to about…
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Opinion The Fallacy of Biological Judaism
Observant Jews of centuries past understood that while being born a Jew was precious and important to one’s Jewishness, it was not necessary and certainly not sufficient for a full Jewish life. The central ideas and actions of a Jew have always had to be taught and learned, never inherited. Nevertheless, until recently many reasonable…
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Opinion The Price Of U.S. Power
Now comes the estimable Shimon Peres, Nobel peace laureate, erstwhile prime minister of the Third Jewish Commonwealth and principal developer of the intimate relationship between Israel and France during the 1950s — when France was Israel’s critical source of arms — and proposes that India replace France on the United Nations Security Council. In effect,…
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Opinion You’re Right Too
The leadership of Reform Judaism was right to bring its resolution on settlements and Palestinian statehood before the Jewish Council for Public Affairs at the council’s annual meeting this week in Baltimore. And the council was right to reject the Reform text. The Reform leaders were right because raising the topic was a courageous, principled…
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Opinion We Couldn’t Make This Up
Dedicated readers of E.J. Kessler’s presidential campaign coverage in the Forward will hardly be surprised to learn that the latest entry into the Democratic presidential field, Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, has adopted a kosher vegan diet in deference to the religious practices of his long-time “best friend,” Cleveland labor lawyer Yelena Boxer. Bemused, perhaps,…
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Opinion Dawdling Diplomacy Emboldens Terrorists
When confronted by terrorism, action trumps inaction. So runs the conceptual underpinning of President Bush’s case for military pre-emption. Despite such tough rhetoric, America’s dawdling diplomacy regarding the liberation of Iraq makes it seem as though the president has failed to heed his own rule of statecraft. Nearly half a year has passed since Bush…
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Opinion America Severs Its Abrahamic Ties, One ‘Small, Good Thing’ at a Time
The writer Raymond Carver once penned a short story with a distinctly minimalist yet memorable title: “A Small, Good Thing.” It’s about a boy who dies in a hospital of “complications,” and whose parents are comforted by a friendly baker who gives them warm rolls — food being a “small, good thing” that makes us…
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Letters February 28, 2003
Leftist Rabbi Denied Podium Because of Ego Once again, Rabbi Michael Lerner has made headlines with his self-aggrandizing egoism, and the Forward fell for it lock, stock and barrel (“Leftist Rabbi Claims He’s Too Pro-Israel for Anti-War Group,” February 14). While it is true that one of the anti-war groups, International Answer, is flagrantly anti-Zionist…
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Opinion Prime Minister Sharon and the Belgian Tool of Law
A central message of Jewish history is that justice, true justice, must be sought. The most enduring image of Israel’s great King Solomon was not as a warrior, a conqueror, a lover or a builder. The picture most of us first think of is his message of justice and the rule of logic and law….
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Opinion A Homeless Babushka’s Shopping Cart
I’ve never spoken to homeless people. They frighten me. Once, while walking out of a Starbucks in SoHo carrying my coffee, a wild-looking man walked over and began screaming. I ran away as I watched him lunge at me. I had no confidence that onlookers would help me out, and felt lucky my body remembered…
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