Opinion

• Opinion

  ‘Let’s all get together:’ A backstory on this weekend’s online Shabbaton for Jews of Color

  In suburban Boston during the 1990s, I once caught a glimpse of a Black man wearing a kippah as he exited a shop next to my daughter’s gymnastics class. After dropping her off, I doubled-back to approach him gingerly. Or maybe not so gingerly. “Hey you!” I yelled — startling him, but beginning what Rick…

  By Robin Washington

  4 min read
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  Opinion

  Modern Jewish families are interfaith— that’s something to embrace

  Two months ago, the chair of a board for a national Jewish organization shared that intermarriage keeps him up at night. There was nothing new about his concern. Jewish worry around intermarriage is ancient, springing from the Torah itself and millennia of commentary. For centuries, when a Jew chose to “marry out,” families sat shiva….

  By Rabbi Emily Cohen May 12, 2021 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  My father stood with Israel when it was under attack. Will we?

  Every day, I read about our complicated world in the news. And I ask myself: what would my father think about this? And what would he have done? Many days, it’s not easy to know. But I’m relieved to know that the answer today is clear. Rockets have been launched at Ashdod, Ashkelon, Tel Aviv…

  By Elisha Wiesel May 11, 2021 | 3 min read

Columnists View All

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

  

• Jay Michaelson Being Jewish in America today feels like walking multiple tightropes at once

  

• Rob Eshman If war with Iran goes badly for the US, Jews will be the scapegoat

  

• Nora Berman Did Netanyahu coerce Trump into attacking Iran? No — but he tried with Obama

  

• Dan Perry The US and Israel could seek to topple Iran’s regime. They should choose negotiation instead

  

• Emily Tamkin Israeli leaders are using Holocaust comparisons to justify attacks on Iran. Is that kosher?

  

The Latest

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  Opinion

  If you’re asking American Jews if they’re religious, you don’t understand American Jews

  (JTA) — In Sheldon Oberman’s children’s book “The Always Prayer Shawl,” a grandfather passes on his tallit to his grandson along with the sage advice, “Some things change and some things don’t.” At public readings, Oberman wore his grandfather’s tallit, which had inspired the story. When a non-Jewish author told him that she wished she…

  By Rachel B. Gross May 11, 2021 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  What the new Pew study missed by not asking about Yiddish

  Read this article in Yiddish. When I heard that the Pew Research Center was releasing its new report on American Jewish identity, and that it had added more measures of expressing Jewishness than it did in its landmark 2013 study, I was sure that “learning Yiddish” or “engaging in Yiddish culture” would be included. After…

  By Rukhl Schaechter May 11, 2021 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Diverse families like mine are the Jewish future

  As we move towards the 54th anniversary of Loving v. Virginia, the landmark Supreme Court ruling that legalized interracial marriage across the United States, I’m consistently reminded that, throughout American history, the fortunes of the multicultural and multiethnic family have been inextricably linked to legal definitions of race. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have died…

  By Marcella White Campbell May 11, 2021 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  What does it mean to be a liberal Zionist in the era of Sheikh Jarrah?

  Yom Yerushalayim (Jerusalem Day) ended in tragedy as Hamas rockets struck the outskirts of the holy city and Israel responded with airstrikes in the Gaza Strip. This followed several days of violent clashes between Palestinians and police, as well as Jewish extremists. One of the recent flashpoints in Jerusalem involves the impending eviction of Palestinian…

  By Abe Silberstein May 10, 2021 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  The fights over Sheikh Jarrah reveal the folly of relitigating Israel’s founding

  Defending the pending evictions of as many as 300 Palestinian residents from East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Aryeh King rhetorically asked: “If you are the owner of the property, and someone was squatting on your property, wouldn’t you have the right to take him from your property?” But the story is more…

  By Evan Gottesman May 10, 2021 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Israel’s new government won’t be perfect. But as a former Knesset leader, I know they can make progress on six key issues.

  The unity government taking shape in Israel is complicated, but it is not doomed. New leadership means new opportunities to create real change. There is a chance that the new government — which includes diverse ideological groups, is younger and more liberal than previous governments, and is not committed to the grave mistakes of Netanyahu…

  By Yossi Beilin May 10, 2021 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Don’t blame tragedies like Mount Meron — or the Holocaust — on imperfect faith

  Soon after the Lag B’Omer tragedy on Mount Meron, the prominent Haredi rabbi Chaim Kanievsky said that women needed to more strictly adhere to laws of modesty to help “rectify the divine decree.” His words shocked me. And they made me think about how my mother, Sala, would have grieved for the families of the…

  By Ann Kirschner May 9, 2021 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  What I learned about Israeli politics from Yair Lapid

  This is an adaptation of Looking Forward, a weekly newsletter from our editor-in-chief sent on Friday afternoons. Sign up here to get the Forward’s free newsletters delivered to your inbox. And click here for a PDF of stories to savor over Shabbat and Sunday that you can download and print. “I’m in no hurry,” Yair…

  By Jodi Rudoren May 7, 2021 | 4 min read