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
Too many chose to look away from Chaim Walder’s crimes. We can make other choices now.
(JTA) — During my first month as an assistant district attorney in the Bronx, I spent most of my time engaged in an intensive orientation. As part of that training, a senior ADA taught us the art of an effective opening argument. Whether you are prosecuting a child rape case, robbery or homicide, your ability…
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Opinion Jan. 6 could happen again. It’s up to us to stop it
This essay was adapted from IT COULD HAPPEN HERE by Jonathan Greenblatt, published by Mariner Books. Copyright © 2022 by Jonathan Greenblatt. Reprinted courtesy of HarperCollinsPublishers. From that fateful day in July 2015 when Donald Trump announced his candidacy as he descended a gilded escalator, he contrived grim visions of criminals and terrorists storming across…
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Opinion I quit the BBC after 30 years because of antisemitism
There is a joke that English antisemitism is: hating Jews more than is absolutely necessary. On Jan. 3, 2022, I resigned from the BBC, where I have been a freelance broadcaster for over 30 years. I appeared regularly on the BBC World Service and on BBC Radio’s Terry Wogan Show, in addition to countless other…
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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.
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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Culture Ashkenazi Jews, there’s 1,000 years of history you’ve been missing
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News Hundreds of Northwestern students can’t register for class because they won’t watch an antisemitism training video. Here’s what’s in it.
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Fast Forward Hegseth says ‘no more beardos’ in the military. What about religious exemptions?
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Fast Forward The ADL doesn’t speak for New York Jews’ concerns, says Zohran Mamdani
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Opinion A crucial Yom Kippur reading holds a scathing lesson on Gaza
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Fast Forward Trump withdraws nomination for economist who praised Nazi warship
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Music ‘Kavalier and Clay’ could be a Jewish-American ‘Ring Cycle’ — what would Richard Wagner think of it?
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Fast Forward New aid flotilla nears Gaza coast, with Greta Thunberg and a Jewish activist on board
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