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
-
Opinion
‘Love your neighbor as yourself:’ How Torah is helping me process Derek Chauvin’s conviction
The video of Rodney King’s beating by members of the Los Angeles Police Department emerged 30 years ago this March. It was one month before I joined the military. A year later, in April 1992, I was 22 years old and a military police person at Fort McClellan, Ala. I still remember the April morning…
-
Opinion Canned beef with juices and other lessons from a year volunteering at the food pantry
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. We generally show up late…
-
Opinion Why won’t Israel acknowledge the Armenian Genocide?
There’s a report that Adolf Hitler once asked, “Who, after all speaks of the annihilation of the Armenians?” The veracity of that quote is unclear. But its popularity speaks to the uncertain place of the Armenian Genocide in the history of the 20th century’s ethnic cleansing movements — often sidelined, or conveniently forgotten about. History…
Columnists View All
The Latest
-
Opinion Fighting antisemitism, and mass incarceration: Talking with Udi Ofer of the ACLU
One of my last memories from the pre-pandemic era is of meeting Udi Ofer, the head of the ACLU’s Justice Division, in February 2020. Ofer and Rabbi Julie Roth, director of the Princeton Hillel, gathered roughly a dozen students for a series of events reconsidering the Passover exodus in light of contemporary mass incarceration. Of…
-
Opinion The IHRA antisemitism definition is supposed to protect people like me. It won’t.
“Fuck Israel!” yelled the man at the crosswalk. I’m very visibly an Orthodox Jew: I wear a kippah and sport a full beard. The man, who I’d never seen before, was looking straight at me. It was a sunny Friday afternoon in Washington, D.C. Thankfully, the light turned green, so I could quickly walk away….
-
Opinion Herman Wouk and my father-in-law: a very Jewish friendship
Sometime in the 1980s, two middle-aged Jewish gentlemen met in the small Chabad synagogue in Palm Springs, California. One was American-born and clean-shaven. The other was a slim, more obviously Orthodox man with a moustache, a black hat, and the air and accent of an Eastern European Jew. In my imagination — I wasn’t present…
-
Opinion ‘I’ve seen this all before:’ Without meaningful reform, I won’t celebrate Chauvin’s conviction
You will have to forgive me for not celebrating the conviction of Derek Chauvin, the police officer who murdered George Floyd in Minneapolis last May. Of course I’m gratified by the three guilty verdicts meted out by the jury this week. But I know better than to breathe a sigh of relief until the judge…
-
Opinion Want real police reform after the Chauvin trial? Start with how they’re trained.
If you’re hoping that Tuesday’s Derek Chauvin verdict will spark true reform in American policing, you may have been looking at the wrong trial. Not because the guilty verdict of the fired Minneapolis police officer who killed George Floyd last May doesn’t signal a sea change in the nation’s justice system. It does. And not…
-
Opinion ‘Tzedek, tzedek tirdof:’ The Derek Chauvin verdict isn’t justice, but it’s a start
In 2014, the murder of Eric Garner at the hands of a police officer was caught on camera, barely 10 minutes away from where my family lives on Staten Island. In the bystander-caught video, you can hear Garner gasping, “I can’t breathe” 11 times as he lies with his face pressed into the sun-baked concrete….
-
Opinion Christian morality is why weed isn’t legal yet
It’s 2021, and the U.S. is still struggling to legalize marijuana, a drug with medical properties that is no more dangerous than legal vices such as alcohol and nicotine. Why? Because the U.S. is a Christian country, with a Christian morality. Not that Judaism promotes uncontrolled intoxication — the Bible contains limits and warnings against…
-
Opinion France’s shame makes me a proud Israeli
On Israel’s Independence Day last week, I rushed with my 9-year-old son, Noam, to the Tel Aviv beach to watch the Israeli air force’s annual show. As we walked through a playground and past a busy road by a car-rental company, we heard people in the crowd chattering in at least seven different languages, most…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
News What We Know About Jeffrey Epstein’s Childhood
- 2
News An audiobook narrator told Zionists to kill themselves. A popular romance novelist hired him anyway.
- 3
Opinion The dark message behind Tucker Carlson’s attempt to drum up drama in Israel
- 4
Opinion The ‘Hymietown’ affair degraded Black-Jewish relations. Jesse Jackson wasn’t the real culprit
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward At Berlin screening, former Israeli hostages see film about their captivity rewritten after redemption
-
Theater He may have been the world’s most famous mime, but in this play, he won’t shut up
-
Fast Forward US soldier who protected Jews in POW camp during WWII to be awarded Medal of Honor
-
Fast Forward Jewish hockey star Jack Hughes’ overtime goal propels US to historic gold medal in Olympic hockey
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
