Opinion

• Opinion

  China is committing genocide against the Uyghurs. American Jews must act now

  Whether we allow the genocide to continue is the moral test of our generation.

  By Laura E. Adkins

  7 min read
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  Opinion

  My wife gave me a DNA test kit for Hanukkah. The family secrets it revealed changed my life

  It should have been a relaxing summer lunch with my maternal first cousins and their spouses, but instead, my mind was racing. I needed to ask a question that had been on my mind for months and I could not wait any longer. Pushing aside my plate, I spoke. “I took an Ancestry DNA test…

  By Dr. Jay M. Ritt Dec 29, 2021 | 5 min read
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  Opinion

  Elder care is a Jewish imperative. So is paying home health workers a living wage

  As a 21-year-old heading off to social work school, I watched my Bubby Jenny die within six months of being put into a nursing home following a stroke. My mother and uncle, her brother, felt helpless and were shattered by both the experience and by their mother’s bitterness toward them at sending her away. There…

  By Bobbie Sackman Dec 29, 2021 | 4 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 Is starvation in Gaza really Israel’s fault? The facts are clear

  

The Latest

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  Opinion

  Our research shows many DEI staff have a blind spot when it comes to Jews

  Progressive Jews face a conundrum with respect to university diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. They earnestly support campus initiatives to attract students and faculty from a variety of backgrounds, learn different perspectives, elevate outcomes for the disadvantaged and reduce hate and bias. But it is also becoming painfully clear that many Diversity, Equity and Inclusion…

  By James D. Paul and Jay P. Greene Dec 28, 2021 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  I’m an Orthodox med student. My community needs real sex education

  “You know, halacha (Jewish law) almost never allows contraception use,” an acquaintance boldly asserted to me recently. More than factually erroneous, the statement belied a misguided attempt to fill a void. In the absence of proper education, he had formed a lopsided picture of Judaism that would inform his personal moral code. This is not…

  By Yael J. Mayer Dec 27, 2021 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Children at my daughter’s school were forced to reenact the Holocaust

  Last week, the librarian at my daughter’s school — Watkins Elementary School in Washington, D.C. -— instructed a class of third graders to “act out” the Holocaust. She instructed the children to pretend they were on a train going to a concentration camp and to pretend to shoot each other, dig mass graves and die…

  By Sarah Erdreich Dec 23, 2021 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  The creator of Kwanzaa modified a Hanukkah menorah — and gave advice to Black Jews

  When Maulana Karenga created Kwanzaa in 1966, he borrowed the concept of a menorah — and according to some accounts, he physically altered one — to invent the seven-candle kinara. A generation later, he gave something back to Judaism. An uncompromising 1960s revolutionary turned university professor, Karenga was already a cultural icon, and his holiday…

  By Robin Washington Dec 23, 2021 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  I was an IDF commander for decades, but my son with autism taught me the true meaning of strength.

  Life is a non-stop battle with disability and human frailty. Whether due to injury, illness, accident or aging, disability touches all of us and the ones we love. We are not at all comfortable with this reality; we would much prefer to focus on human successes and heroics, on how much we achieve as a…

  By Doron Almog Dec 21, 2021 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  I was arrested for a crime I didn’t commit. The Palestinians I work with suffer far worse

  A few weeks ago the police abruptly came to my house in Jerusalem on two different occasions. The first visit they paid was at 3:30 in the morning; six officers came and banged on the doors and windows until my four roommates and I woke up. My roommates and I were suspected of having drawn…

  By Oriel Eisner Dec 21, 2021 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  I challenge you to find a typo in this column (and bet you’ll be able to)

  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. I was absolutely mortified two weeks ago when this column published…

  By Jodi Rudoren Dec 17, 2021 | 6 min read
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  Opinion

  American Jews — on the left and the right — got Trump’s Israel legacy all wrong

  The release of former President Donald Trump’s explosive interviews with Israeli journalist Barak Ravid and Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s visit to the United Arab Emirates should comprise a wake-up call to American Jews: both Trump’s stalwart admirers and implacable foes are getting the story wrong. Trump’s achievements in the Middle East are far greater…

  By Ari Hoffman Dec 15, 2021 | 4 min read