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
-
Opinion
Potent, But Not Omnipotent
Back in September, the White House released a document entitled, rather pompously, “The National Security Strategy of the United States of America.” Much of the discussion that then followed focused on the document’s explicit endorsement of preemptive action: “The greater the threat, the greater the risk of inaction — and the more compelling the case…
-
Opinion Moving Right
It was, perhaps, inevitable. American Jews, known worldwide for their indomitable liberalism, have begun moving to the right. That’s the finding of a new survey appearing on our front page, conducted by Steven M. Cohen, the dean of American Jewish opinion research. The shift is only in its incipient stages, reflected mainly in declining Democratic…
-
Opinion Human Rights Dodge
Human Rights Watch, the New York-based watchdog group, released its annual World Report this week, and it makes for a grim read. Reviewing conditions in 58 countries around the globe, the 558-page report is a litany of dictatorships that torture dissenters, use rape and mutilation as political strategies and murder their own citizens by the…
Columnists View All
The Latest
-
Opinion All of Israel Responsible for One Another’s Children
When I first hear about any terrorist tragedy, whether here in Israel or elsewhere in the world, my mind races from the victims who lost their lives to the secondary victims — the children, the children who lost and continue to lose parents and siblings and best friends and their innocence. I also fear for…
-
Opinion King’s Spiritual Activism
There appear to be two kinds of faith these days in America. The first, fundamentalism, promotes coerciveness and exclusivity, encouraging polarization, impenetrable boundaries and a deep suspicion of the other. The second, a type of New Age spirituality, is largely self-concerned, mainly focusing on the individual and his or her feelings and well-being. Dr. Martin…
-
Opinion Tend to Our Garden
Tu B’Shvat, which we observe this Saturday, challenges us to think seriously about how we might apply authentic Jewish values to the ecological challenges confronting our planet. Sadly, some Jews are not involved in this enterprise, even though they observe the traditions, for they identify environmentalism with nonreligious, even anti-religious, elements and instinctively reject them….
-
Letters January 17, 2003
Know Law of the Land Before Advising Israel The strategic advice the editorialist offers the government of Israel seems remarkably unencumbered by the sad facts of the last two-and-a-half years (“The Tin Badge II,” January 3). Contrary to the Forward’s assertion, Israel has not “insisted on remaining in control of the territories.” Furthermore, the pressure…
-
Letters January 10, 2003
Mamet’s Macho Love Of Israel Is Immature How nice that David Mamet has fallen in love with Israel in his middle age (“‘If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem’: The Power of Blunt Nostalgia,” December 27). I remember feeling the same way, except I was a teenager. Now, 30 years later, I see that the course I…
-
Opinion At Home With Exile
Israel proclaims itself the center of the Jewish world, the source of Jewish loyalty and inspiration. Even those of us who not only dwell in the Diaspora but who are in some real sense Diasporists — people who find Jewish meaning and potential in our dispersion — are for the most part prepared to acknowledge…
-
Opinion How Not To Fight Terror
The two Palestinians who blew themselves up in downtown Tel Aviv last Sunday, killing 22 innocent victims and wounding more than 100, were identified by their handlers this week as young men from the West Bank city of Nablus, Burak Hilsa and Samar A-Nuri. According to a statement from the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the…
-
Opinion Don’t Cut Outreach
The Union of American Hebrew Congregations owes everyone a better explanation than the one it offered for its decision to lay off its corps of regional outreach directors. The Reform union says the elimination of the coordinators, who work with synagogues and individuals to bring interfaith families into Judaism, was just one of many painful…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
News The ADL’s turn away from civil rights was years in the making — Oct. 7 accelerated it
- 2
Antisemitism Decoded How an ‘all-American boy’ became a Mississippi synagogue arson suspect
- 3
Culture The mysterious case of Barbra Streisand and the missing half-pound of Zabar’s sturgeon
- 4
Culture He works at a Holocaust museum by day. How’d he end up in ‘Marty Supreme’?
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward OneTable reimagines Shabbat dinner program amid safety concerns, layoffs and budget crisis
-
Fast Forward Resignations shake art gallery after it rejects Jewish pro-Palestinian activist’s work over antisemitism claims
-
Fast Forward Berlin rabbi convicted of ‘sexual assault and sexual coercion’ of woman he offered to counsel
-
News Why Josh Shapiro’s memoir could complicate a presidential run
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
