Opinion

• Opinion

  My secret life as a Mossad operative

  This is an adaptation of Looking Forward, a weekly email from our editor-in-chief sent on Friday afternoons. Sign up here to get the Forward’s free newsletters delivered to your inbox. Download and print our free magazine of stories to savor over Shabbat and Sunday. The husband nearly fell off his recliner a couple of weeks…

  By Jodi Rudoren

  6 min read
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  Opinion

  Here’s what to say about Israel and apartheid

  The report from Amnesty Internationalthis week accusing Israel of “committing the crime of apartheid” against Palestinians within and outside Israel’s 1967 borders set off a storm of controversy. It also sent me to reread my new go-to response to Israel and the A-word, Danny Sokatch’s 2021 book, “Can We Talk About Israel? A Guide for…

  By Rob Eshman Feb 3, 2022 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  An Orthodox dad and a biker with Nazi tattoos walk into a hardware store

  I was shopping at Lowe’s Hardware last Sunday to pick up some things for our new home in Austin, Texas, having just moved back after 26 years in greater Chicago. I was with my son, who had turned four a few days before and is already interested in tools and building materials (and cars and…

  By David Feder Feb 3, 2022 | 3 min read

Columnists View All

• Jodi Rudoren This is my last column as editor of the Forward

  

• Jay Michaelson American Jews were played — now what?

  

• Rob Eshman A new humanitarian outrage is unfolding in the Middle East. It’s not in Gaza

  

• Nora Berman The left is turning on AOC over Israel — and imperiling its own agenda

  

• Dan Perry Actually, Trump made things between Israel and Iran way worse

  

• Emily Tamkin Zohran Mamdani’s victory proves it: The ‘gotcha’ mode of fighting antisemitism has to go

  

The Latest

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  Opinion

  We can’t fail the Uyghurs as the world failed us

  As the Olympics begin, what is at stake is not medals, but the world’s commitment to Never Again. It is hard to fathom that 77 years after the end of the Holocaust, a potentially genocidal state is hosting the Olympic Games. As the athletes parade into the Beijing stadium for the opening ceremonies, the Chinese…

  By Naomi Kikoler and Rachel (Rae) Goldfarb Feb 3, 2022 | 4 min read
• 
  Letters

  Jews are just as confused about our race as Whoopi Goldberg is

  To the editor: Like Nora Berman, I also felt that Whoopi Goldberg’s Holocaust remarks were a teachable moment — but I’m a teacher, so to me most moments are. Fifty-plus years as a Jewish educator have taught me that hardly anyone, including many Jews, really understands antisemitism. We have long denied that we are a…

  Feb 3, 2022 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  Amidst conflict, Ukrainian Jewish women are thriving — and preparing for whatever happens next

  As tensions between Russia and Ukraine continue to mount, a chorus of male voices from the Soviet Jewish Diaspora, and an older generation of Jewish Ukrainian leaders, are telling us what to think about it. It is common to see panels of Jewish life in Ukraine with no women represented, hosting Ukrainian leaders who have…

  By Vlada Nedak Feb 3, 2022 | 5 min read
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  Opinion

  What did Whoopi do wrong? Let’s break it down — and really talk about Jews and race

  Before anything else, let me say that I have no intention of “canceling” Whoopi Goldberg. I think she adds an interesting perspective to ABC’s “The View.” That said, I definitely do not agree with everything she does or says, just as I don’t agree with most celebrities who opine on serious subjects in popular media….

  By Rishona Campbell Feb 3, 2022 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  My family’s worst moment is captured in ‘Maus.’ Its ban gravely disappoints me

  Have you ever discovered an incident from your own family’s history in a famous work of art? I have. As a child, my mother would tell me stories about our family’s experiences during the Holocaust. Some of them had happened to her parents, Chaya and Mendel, who had fled to the Soviet Union after the…

  By Edo Steinberg Feb 2, 2022 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Whoopi Goldberg’s Holocaust comments were wrong — and I’m glad she said them

  Whoopi Goldberg’s comments about the Holocaust could not have been more wrong, but I’m glad that she said what she said. In a cringe-inducing segment on The View, Goldberg, during a discussion of the banning of the book “Maus” by a Tennessee school board, said that “the Holocaust wasn’t about race.” Goldberg later apologized, and…

  By Nora Berman Feb 1, 2022 | 5 min read
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  Opinion

  A poem for my son, Daniel Pearl, on the 20th anniversary of his death

  The following is a poem by Professor Judea Pearl, originally published on the 10th anniversary of his son Daniel Pearl’s death. On February 1, 2002, the 38-year-old journalist was murdered by terrorists in Pakistan. The poem is reprinted here with permission. Come walk the road to lions’ den South of midnight, planet earth, Karachi, Pakistan….

  By Judea Pearl Feb 1, 2022 | < 1 min read
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  Opinion

  I’ve been a hostage negotiator for kidnapped journalists like Daniel Pearl. Here’s what I wish everyone knew

  Today marks the 20th anniversary of the death of Daniel Pearl, the American journalist who was kidnapped and then brutally murdered by terrorists in Pakistan on Feb. 1, 2002. Danny’s death affected me deeply — his abduction on the way to an arranged interview at a Karachi restaurant, the kidnappers’ note that read more like…

  By Daniel Levin Feb 1, 2022 | 8 min read