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
An open letter to Randi Weingarten: Poor Jews exist, too
In a recent interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Randi Weingarten, the longtime president of the American Federation of Teachers, commented that “American Jews are now part of the ownership class.” She was responding to a question about why the AFT has advocated for teachers to stay out of classrooms, despite the drive to get…
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Opinion Looking Forward: Introducing a new format for our Editor-in-Chief’s weekly newsletter
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. Shortly after I took this job,…
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Opinion How HIV-AIDS saved lives during COVID-19
All four of my grandparents and all eight of my great grandparents survived the catastrophic influenza pandemic of 1918. But what if they hadn’t? What if that deadly pandemic a century ago — at least as deadly as the COVID-19 pandemic — had taken the life of even one of my forebears? I wouldn’t be…
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Opinion Biden is pushing us to rebuild society. Let’s take a cue from early Zionists, and do it.
Standing at a podium at a carpenter training facility in western Pennsylvania, Joe Biden on Wednesday announced the most ambitious reimagining of the federal government since the New Deal. The American Jobs Plan, which comes on the heels of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan that Biden signed into law in March, calls for an…
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Opinion New labor bill threatens America’s entrepreneurial spirit
My great-great-grandfather Benjamin Gertz left Russia in the late 1800s to escape antisemitism. In New York, he grew a stationary shop into a dry-goods store and then a major department store, Gertz, headquartered in Jamaica, Queens. As a business owner myself, I like to think I inherited my entrepreneurial spirit from my great-great-grandpa. But while…
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Opinion Four Questions about matzo brei, starting with why don’t we eat it year-round
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. On Sunday morning, as the eighth…
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Opinion This Passover, I’m contemplating the plague of ageism
I used to think old people were either cute or sad. The cute ones were Kirk Douglas or Ruth Bader Ginsburg doing push-ups, and gray-haired couples animatedly talking to each other or walking hand in hand in the park. The sad ones were stooped, infirm, inept, crotchety, disheveled, occasionally incoherent, and mostly invisible. I used…
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Opinion I reached out to the woman behind that viral Christian Seder. She deserves compassion.
Last year, one of my Christian friends posted an infuriating picture of her Passover Seder on Instagram. Her table was set immaculately and looked light-years better than mine. That’s why it was offensive: she had the chutzpah to do it better. In her post, she made it clear that she was celebrating Passover as a…
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Opinion It’s hard to connect to the Torah as a trans Jew. I’m trying anyway.
This essay originally appeared on Alma, 70 Faces Media’s feminist Jewish culture site. Had you asked me 20 years ago, 10 years ago, even last year (truthfully, last month) if I’d ever quote the Torah in a piece I was writing, I probably would have (respectfully and nervously) laughed in your face. The Torah makes…
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Opinion When it comes to race, American Jews must do a better job pursuing justice
Last month, the House of Representatives passed the The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, a law designed to transform the way law enforcement interacts with Black communities nationwide. Especially as the trial of George Floyd’s killer, Derek Chauvin, gets underway this week, it’s an important step to ending police abuses of Black people, and…
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Opinion Jews must stop letting the right smear Kristen Clarke as antisemitic — she’s the leader we need
This month, the Union for Reform Judaism — which represents some 850 congregations of the largest Jewish denomination in America — decided to endorse a presidential cabinet nomination for the first time, ever. The nominee: Kristen Clarke, who has been selected by President Joe Biden to lead the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. To…
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Opinion The ‘Hymietown’ affair degraded Black-Jewish relations. Jesse Jackson wasn’t the real culprit
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