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
I stopped saying ‘stay safe’ to my family in Gaza. Because there is no way to stay safe in Israel’s most intense assault yet.
“We’re gonna die…” is becoming the first common, grim, and indescribably guilting thing I hear from the many people I cherish in Gaza, uttered almost subconsciously at the start of each conversation. “This is pure madness” is the second. And even “madness” falls critically short of describing what my family and friends have to endure….
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Opinion Wokeness goes to war
As rockets continue to crisscross the skies between the Mediterranean Sea and Jordan River, as horrific riots break out in cities from Lod to Ashkelon, a more far-flung front has opened up as a result of the violence in Israel: a war for public opinion here in the United States. Just as the scale of…
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Opinion A wartime prayer from a bomb-safe room in Jaffa
“The softer sirens come with softer bangs,” observed my 12 year-old at 3 a.m., as we went into our Mamad (bomb-safe room) during the third siren, last night in Jaffa. The siren is loud, as are the bangs that follow – typically the sound of the Iron Dome missiles hitting the Gazan rockets. Sometimes we…
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Opinion ‘I’d been in that bus before’: Marking the 60th anniversary of the Freedom Rides
Sixty years ago, on May 14, 1961, one of two buses carrying an interracial group of Freedom Riders was firebombed on the outskirts of Anniston, Ala. The riders barely escaped with their lives, only to be beaten by the mob outside. Of lesser import but nonetheless seared into America’s collective memory was the fate of…
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Opinion Looking at history may help understand Israeli-Palestinian violence, but won’t end it
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 made a lentil soup…
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Opinion On a bridge near Abu Gosh, Arabs and Jews showed me a better way
“We can be together,” the flyer said. Jews and Arabs. And we were. At 6 p.m. on Thursday, dozens gathered on a bridge outside Abu Gosh, a town on the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway, wearing jeans and T-shirts, dancing and singing, holding up their hopeful signs. “The solution to racism is cooperation between Jews and Arabs,”…
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Opinion What the new Pew study tells us — and misses — about Jews under 30
The youngest generation of American Jews is more diverse — and more divided — than any generation prior. At least, that’s what the the new Pew Study of American Jews reports. On Tuesday night, the Forward’s Opinion Editor Laura E. Adkins spoke with Forward columnist Alex Zeldin, Jewish Currents editor Arielle Angel, and 18Doors Chicago director Tani…
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Opinion Many Orthodox Americans feel more in common with Republicans than with fellow Jews
Generally speaking, American Jews are liberal and identify with the Democratic Party. That is, apparently, unless you are Orthodox. The new Pew study released this week found that 75% of Orthodox Jews identify as Republican, up from 57% in 2013, the last time a similar survey was conducted. None of this, I would venture, is…
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Opinion Israeli leaders should move for a ceasefire immediately
From my 12 years at Jewish Day School, I remember countless assemblies and programs showcasing videos of Israeli missile alert sirens, followed by civilians running to shelters and, often, the Iron Dome’s missile interceptions. Despite the fact that we were in America, we were taught to feel personally connected to Israelis being bombarded by missiles,…
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Opinion What do my children understand – and what should I tell them – about the Israeli-Palestinian violence?
It is with heartbreak and concern that so many American Jewish adults are gazing towards the Middle East. But what do American Jewish children know about the current violence in Israel and Gaza? And how ought the adults who love them—parents, grandparents, and teachers—talk with them about it? As a social scientist who studies Jewish…
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Opinion Hamas rocketed my hometown — and the White House is responsible
As I write, the sirens have stopped wailing, the Iron Dome has finished its dull thumping, and people have left the bomb shelters. Gaza’s rocketeers have switched their sights from my hometown Beit Shemesh, but the sky over Tel Aviv is now lit up with a murderous pyrotechnic display. Across Israel, tens of thousands of…
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