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
I worked for Joe Biden. Here’s what he really thinks about Israel.
If there’s one thing I’ve come to know about Vice President Joe Biden from working for him, it’s that he wears his heart on his sleeve. I was Biden’s personal assistant from 1986-87, during which time I learned that he says what he means, and he brings his life’s experiences with him, whether tragedy or…
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Opinion Amy Coney Barrett reminds me of all the Haredi mothers I admire
On Monday night the Senate will wrap up the confirmation of Judge Amy Coney Barrett, who will be voted in to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court. It’s a good time to pause and recognize something astonishing about the confirmation proceedings: For a time as politically riven as ours, Judge Barrett’s confirmation…
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Opinion About double standards, antisemitism, and Israel
Was there a double standard in the controversy at the University of Southern California that led to the resignation of a Jewish student leader, Rose Ritch, after a spate of online harassment targeting her as a Zionist? Bari Weiss, who publicly resigned as a New York Times Opinion writer and editor this summer, was just…
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Opinion California ballot initiative to restore affirmative action is unnecessary and dangerous
There are few issues that have inflamed relations between Blacks and white Jews more than affirmative action. As Californians vote — yet again — on whether to allow the use of racial and ethnic preferences to guide admissions to its vaunted public university system, we are in danger of over-rotating and further dividing groups that…
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Opinion What Saeb Erekat taught me about the peace process
Editor’s note: Saeb Erekat died on Nov. 10, 2020, after contracting Covid-19. This article was originally published while he was in the hospital, on Oct. 23. 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….
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Opinion Should former Trump officials be welcomed back to polite society? It depends.
Toward the end of the 2016 campaign, when it appeared certain that Hillary Clinton would make history as the nation’s first woman president, a running joke on Twitter depicted the dilemma of Trump campaign officials seeking work after November: An imagined job interviewer, seeing a peculiar resume gap that covered the presidential campaign season, inquired…
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Opinion How wokeness on campus is seeping into antisemitism — in lower schools
Morton Schapiro, the president of Northwestern University, did something this week that passes for heroism in these cowardly times: he stood up for himself as a Jew. The context has become depressingly familiar. A group called “NU Community Not Cops” gathered outside of Schapiro’s house in the wee hours of Sunday morning and chanted “f-ck…
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Opinion We still have time to resist Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation — and we must
Like many of my fellow Reform rabbis, I am deeply concerned about what the pending confirmation of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court might mean for our country. Barrett has historically stood against many of the fundamental rights and freedoms that the Reform Movement has supported for decades. Among those, and at the…
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Opinion How testifying at the Chicago 7 trial led me to put on a yarmulke
Fifty years ago, in perhaps the most tumultuous political trial in American history, I found myself wearing a yarmulke to defend my — myself, actually. It was the first time I put one on outside of a synagogue or a Seder. Within a year, I was keeping my head covered all the time. The trial,…
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Opinion The peace process is hospitalized in Jerusalem with Covid
I come not to bury Saeb Erekat nor to praise him, but merely to reflect on what the possibility of him dying would say about the conflict he has toiled within for decades. Erekat, the veteran Palestinian negotiator, is hospitalized in Jerusalem with Covid-19, and his prognosis is grim. Eulogies are already being written, and…
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Opinion The government must do more to address antisemitism and anti-Zionism on campus
Even on COVID-closed college campuses, some students continue to find ways to harm one another. Recently, anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist incidents have been cause for alarm. A recent move by the Education Department to change the guidance on reporting campus antisemitic vandalism is good, but there is still much more to do. At the University of…
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Opinion Zohran Mamdani’s victory proves it: The ‘gotcha’ mode of fighting antisemitism has to go
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Opinion Mamdani’s victory is an opportunity for Jews to relearn the art of disagreement
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Culture As Mel Brooks turns 99, his wisdom matters more than ever
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