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
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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Opinion Sally Rooney’s refusal to work with an Israeli publisher is antisemitic — just like all of BDS
It was already clear that something was up with acclaimed novelist Sally Rooney when I read her 2018 book “Normal People” and the characters randomly started bashing Israel: “They went to a protest against the war in Gaza…Marianne wanted her life to mean something then, she wanted to stop all violence committed by the strong…
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Opinion ‘I made the choice’: 9 readers share their (Jewish) abortion stories
The response to the column I wrote about my abortion story was unlike anything I’ve experienced in more than 30 years of journalism. Messages poured in via email and text, on Twitter and on Facebook, from people I’ve known forever and many I’ve never met. One woman I volunteer with at the food pantry just…
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Fast Forward CA Gov. Newsom says he regrets apartheid comment, ‘reveres’ Israel in new interview
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Yiddish װער מעג שפּילן אַ ייִד? אַ סיכסוך אין דײַטשלאַנדWho can play a Jew — A debate in Germany
אין בערלין דעבאַטירט מען פּאָליטישע ענינים דװקא אין טעאַטער — און דאָס הײַפֿל ייִדן אין לאַנד געפֿינט זיך אין צענטער
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Books In three centuries of Southern Jewish life in the Big Easy, no easy way to be Jewish
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Yiddish „קיין שוועדיש רעדט מען נישט!“ — אַ ייִדיש־טאָג בײַם לונדער אוניװערסיטעט ‘No speaking Swedish here!’ — Yiddish Day in Lund University
די 30 אָנטייל־נעמערס זענען געקומען פֿון גאַנץ שװעדן, נאָרװעגיע, פֿינלאַנד און אַנדערע אייראָפּעיִשע לענדער.
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