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
Growing up Jewish in Mexico, Dia De Los Muertos was forbidden to me. Here’s why I now proudly celebrate it
This essay originally appeared in Hey Alma. Growing up with one foot in Mexico and one foot in the United States, I am no stranger to the idea of straddling two cultures. In religious studies, we call this idea liminality. Vampires, centaurs, even Jesus Christ (as both divine and human) are all liminal beings. To…
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Opinion My Serbian grandfather was killed during the Holocaust. How he died remained a secret — until now
My grandfather Alexander Brill was murdered in Belgrade, Yugoslavia 80 years ago this November. My family only learned the date — Nov. 13, 1941 — in 2017 when we received documents from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. When you think of the Holocaust, you likely think of massive death camps, gas chambers, cattle cars, prisoner…
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Opinion Ashkenazi Jewish women like me have a higher risk of breast cancer. I didn’t know this until my own diagnosis
Breast cancer can strike any woman at any time, yet few young women are fully aware of the potential deadly threat they face. For Ashkenazi Jews like myself, this disease looms as an even larger threat compared to most women. A mutation in the BRCA gene is the most common cause of hereditary breast cancer….
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Opinion This California camp lets Jews of Color like me just be ourselves
Have you ever heard the woods sing “B’tzelem Elohim”? The whistle between trees carries the melody. The acoustics of boulders amplify the reach of the lyrics: “When I reach out to you and you to me/We become B’tzelem Elohim.” It is in the divine image — B’tzelem Elohim — when an intergenerational and multiracial group…
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Opinion Reform Jews helped write US voting rights laws. Today, rabbis are arrested for defending them
I have engaged in civil disobedience against the actions of Sudanese crimes against humanity in Darfur, South African apartheid, and a U.S. administration whose Vietnam policy I morally deplored. But never have I done so at the gates of the White House of a President I so staunchly admire, whose policies resonate so deeply with…
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Opinion Palestinian textbooks are (still) teaching students to hate Jews
Muhammad Shehada’s Op-Ed “Palestinian Textbooks aren’t the problem,” published in The Forward on Oct. 14, laments the fact that the Palestinian Authority’s educational materials and their incitement toward Jews and Israelis has recently gained traction in Europe. European policymakers have researched the violence and antisemitism within Palestinian textbooks for years, passing legislation in 2018, 2020…
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Opinion The ultimate response to antisemitism? Learn Yiddish
When my dad was growing up in Leningrad in the former Soviet Union, he’d beat up the neighborhood kids for calling him a “zhyd”—a pejorative term for Jew that’s akin to “kike.” His flair for fighting was prophetic, as he grew up to be a professional boxer. When he and my mom started dating, she…
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Opinion I was taught the ‘opposing perspective’ of the Holocaust in middle school. I’ll never forget it
In the fallout from NBC News’ revelations that teachers in Texas were told to teach “opposing perspectives” about the Holocaust, many people are asking what teaching “opposing perspectives” of the Holocaust looks like. I know from personal experience, since I attended a Holocaust class that invited us to consider the Nazi perspective in middle school….
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Opinion My husband survived the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre. Pursuing the death penalty for the shooter would make things worse
The capital murder case against the perpetrator of the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting is dragging on; the Poway shooter who committed his synagogue attack six months later has already received a sentence of life in prison without parole. This week’s two-day evidentiary hearing was filled with testimony from police officers recounting antisemitic comments made by…
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Opinion Mahjong saved my life
I am the least impulsive person I know. I don’t jump into things — I wade. It took me two years to utter the words, “I want a divorce,” even when I knew I desperately needed to; I update my Fresh Direct cart at least four times before ordering; and I research trips beforehand as…
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Opinion Sally Rooney’s translation debacle is a political stunt that misses the plot
There is no honor in boycotting a language and a people. And yet that is what Sally Rooney has effectively done, despite her statement to the contrary, by blocking Hebrew translation of her new novel, “Beautiful World, Where Are You” by Modan Publishing House. Hebrew belongs to no one nation state. It is an ancient…
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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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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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