In the Forward’s opinion section, you’ll find analysis and essays from diverse corners of the Jewish world.
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Opinion
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Opinion
What the Surfside tragedy teaches us about ‘critical maintenance’
While driving my daughter to her viola lesson this week, we heard a radio story about the condominium collapse in Surfside, Fla. — an event as absurd as it is agonizing. As one resident in the neighboring tower put it, these things are not supposed to happen in this country. As a structural engineer being…
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Opinion YOUR TURN: Reader stories of vaccine-dilemmas at hair salons and beyond
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. And click here for a PDF of stories to savor over Shabbat and Sunday that you can download and print. It’s happening in hair salons…
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Letters Letter | Arizona is a great place to be a Jew
Editor: I was disappointed by Amy Silverman’s June 28 article in the Forward. Arizona is a great place to be a Jew. While Silverman asks why any Jew would stay in Arizona, the reality is that our Jewish community is active, vibrant and proud of being Jewish in the state. Arizona is not the right-wing…
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Opinion The Surfside disaster was a terrible wakeup call. Will we listen?
An unfathomable tragedy is unfolding right now in Surfside, where eleven people are confirmed dead and 150 still missing. The collapse of an apartment building — without warning, and for reasons that remain unclear — defies expectation. Tragedies like these are moments of shattering. We are praying for the families of those who have perished…
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Opinion The Surfside disaster is our generation’s Triangle Shirtwaist Factory moment
On Shabbat afternoon, March 25, 1911, the top floors of the Jewish-owned Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in Lower Manhattan went up in flames. Due to the building’s structural flaws, the number of people working at the time, and the lack of responsive emergency personnel, 146 lives were lost in just 18 minutes. As labor attorney Jonathan…
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Opinion WATCH: Abby Stein shares three Jewish texts that show more than two genders in Judaism
Abby Stein is a proud Jewish woman. But growing up, she didn’t feel that Judaism had a space for people like her. Abby was raised in an ultra-Orthodox hasidic Jewish community, and as she puts it, “growing up, we had a very strong focus on studying, researching, questioning and finding answers in texts.” The Torah…
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Opinion The Surfside tragedy recalls South Florida’s long hold on the Jewish imagination and reality
(JTA “”)) — Until a 13-story building inexplicably collapsed in the middle of the night, placing the whereabouts and lives of 159 residents in doubt, few gave Surfside, Florida, very much thought before last week. The town was, after all, a South Florida misnomer. There’s no surfing. The white caps on the Atlantic Ocean never…
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Opinion What a haircut taught me about rebuke, rights and responsibilities regarding the coronavirus vaccine
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. And click here for a PDF of stories to savor over Shabbat and Sunday that you can download and print. I got my haircut this…
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Opinion Reparations helped Germany atone for its past. They can help America, too
When I visited Berlin a number of years ago, I was surprised by the number of plaques embedded in the city’s streets that contain the name of Jews sent to their death by the Nazi regime. I was equally impressed by the myriad neighborhood memorials that many visitors might easily miss: a wall at a…
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Opinion This new social justice theory is making academia dangerous for Jews
This June, two Jewish mental health providers at Stanford University alleged they were the targets of anti-Jewish harassment. Ron Albucher, a prominent psychiatrist and Sheila Levin, a clinical social worker, have filed a legal complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on June 15. The complaint alleges that Stanford University’s Counseling & Psychological Services’ Diversity,…
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Opinion Wear sunscreen. Put down your phone. Be kind. We are all graduates in the Class of 2021.
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. And click here for a PDF of stories to savor over Shabbat and Sunday that you can download and print. Wear sunscreen. Perhaps the most…
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