Opinion

• Opinion

  Black Jewish partnership in the age of Black Lives Matter

  Torah teaches Black lives matter. Torah teaches all lives matter. This truth has resonated around the world with non-Jews and Jews who are Black, indigenous and people of color and Jews who aren’t. Movements and political positions come and go, but the truth of Torah is eternal. While the truth of Torah is beyond time…

  By Ed Gaskin/JewishBoston.com

  8 min read
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  Opinion

  My grandfather survived Auschwitz — and spends his life spreading kindness

  (JTA) — On Jan. 6, a sea of heads bobbed and flags flew outside the U.S. Capitol. A closer look revealed a dark hoodie, skull, crossbones and large white letters: “Camp Auschwitz,” followed by “Work Brings Freedom.” That’s the phrase my 91-year-old grandfather, David Moskovic, saw every day in German — “Arbeit Macht Frei” —…

  By Hannah Alberga Jan 27, 2021 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  I’m a Jewish DACA recipient. Joe Biden has already changed my life.

  (JTA) — As Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th president of the United States last week, my sigh of relief was deeply, painfully personal. My life has been defined by migration and the laws associated with it since I arrived here from Caracas, Venezuela, with my single mother and sister at the age…

  By Elias Rosenfeld Jan 27, 2021 | 5 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 For Trump and Netanyahu, statecraft is now synonymous with stagecraft

  

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

  

The Latest

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  Opinion

  The best way to remember the Holocaust? Preserve our American democracy.

  My late mother, a Polish Holocaust survivor, was always cautious, even in the face of positive events. If you predicted something good would happen, she would utter the Yiddish word “kinehora,” which means “to ward off the evil eye.” In essence, she did not want something discussed, lest it may not happen. Given the traumas…

  By Frank Hornstein Jan 27, 2021 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Holocaust education is essential — but we have to reimagine it

  International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Jan. 27, exists as an annual opportunity for the global community to commemorate the victims of the horrific crimes committed by the Nazis and their supporters — and to learn about them. Remembrance means little without education, and this year, as far-right extremism has reached new peaks both domestically with the…

  By Sharon Nazarian Jan 27, 2021 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  I live among evangelicals, and admired them. Now I think a reckoning is due.

  As a Jew, it’s arguably not my place to either lecture white evangelical Christians or attempt to explain them to the world. But few secular American journalists have written on the subject as deeply as I have for the past 35 years. I have lived among evangelicals, and raised my family in their company. For…

  By Mark I. Pinsky Jan 26, 2021 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  It takes a village to create a nation’s memory

  In the early postwar years in the German town of Warendorf, no one contributed as much to facing the difficult past as Hugo Spiegel. He was not a learned man. He was Jewish, however. And his story tells us something important about how German communities confronted their history. The central insight is that a country…

  By Helmut Walser Smith Jan 25, 2021 | 9 min read
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  Opinion

  I witnessed Tahrir Square as an Israeli diplomat. 10 years later I’m still looking for peace.

  It is a well-known Egyptian proverb: Once you drink from the Nile, you are destined to return. I had the privilege of serving as an Israeli diplomat in Cairo, Egypt, on two diplomatic tours. On my first tour, I came to see Cairo as my second home; that was one of the reasons I chose…

  By Israel Nitzan Jan 25, 2021 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  The Haredi community is more than Heshy Tischler — let us tell our own stories

  . Back in the summer of 2016, five police officers were killed in Dallas as ostensible “payback” for police shootings of unarmed Black men around the country. Former President George W. Bush, speaking at the officers’ memorial service, accurately summed up precisely what it was about that moment in time that made the massacre possible….

  By Eli Steinberg Jan 24, 2021 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Ella Emhoff isn’t Jewish (and she doesn’t want to talk about it)

  This is an adaptation of our weekly Shabbat newsletter, sent by our editor-in-chief 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 want to acknowledge that I have…

  By Jodi Rudoren Jan 22, 2021 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Andrew Yang: My vision for New York City’s Jewish community

  I was on the Lower East Side on Sunday with my wife, Evelyn, for a small-business tour. In my 25 years in the city, I’ve visited the neighborhood countless times for any number of reasons: to eat at Russ & Daughters or Congee Village with friends, visit the Tenement Museum or ride my bike before…

  By Andrew Yang Jan 22, 2021 | 3 min read