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
States’ attempts to roll back voting rights betray American values — and Jewish ones
The sweeping law that Georgia’s legislature passed on Thursday to restrict voting rights — part of a proliferation of such efforts Republicans are pushing in statehouses across the country — is shameful. I always thought it was tragic that comparatively few American citizens took seriously their right to vote. Now, rather than celebrating after the…
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Opinion Entering Passover under the plague of vaccine guilt
As I unpack my Passover dishes and prepare to host a Seder that includes my aging parents — an enormous luxury compared to last year’s Zoom-only reality at the start of the pandemic — I find myself facing waves of an unfamiliar feeling. Vaccine guilt: That’s the guilt you get when you’re vaccinated and other…
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Letters Letter | Talk of Tikun Olam is replacing real Judaism
To the editor: In her op-ed, found in these pages, Abby Seitz astonishingly asserted that the Arab Joint-List was the party that best reflected her Jewish values. She claimed that her rabbis and educators stress our people’s supposed longstanding commitment to Tikkun Olam, “repairing the world.” But in Judaism, Jews are tasked with adhering to…
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Opinion Meet the Israeli Reform rabbi who just made history getting elected to Knesset
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. It’s pretty difficult not to be…
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Opinion A new declaration aims to fight antisemitism without curtailing free speech
Antisemitism is on the rise, with powerful instigators behind it, but the struggle against it is at risk of being derailed by acrimonious divisions among Jews and others over its very meaning. The drive for adoption of a single, fixed definition of antisemitism has devolved into a polemical political debate on Israel and Palestine with…
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Opinion This year, I learned the pain and beauty of praying outside
This essay originally appeared in the New York Jewish Week. Friday night. We are standing in a paved plaza beside Riverside Drive; the air is crisp, the fresh snow is sparkling like diamond dust in the setting sun. We are 6 feet apart and masked (I can’t wait for this combined phrase to become obsolete)….
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Opinion The world is in pain this Passover. These rabbis have wisdom to help us embrace it.
(JTA) — This Passover, redemption feels so close — yet so far away. Nearly 50 million Americans have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19; at least 543,000 have died from the disease. Some of us are able to safely gather with others for the Seder this year; many of us are still separated from loved ones….
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Opinion Israelis hold liberal views. Why do they vote right-wing?
“Polls are like perfume, you can smell, but never taste” said the late Shimon Peres — meaning that while polls prevent politicians from being blindsided by events, they are not a certain predictor of election results. Today’s polls indicate that the power of the Israeli Zionist left has been in serious decline. From a peak…
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Opinion Biden’s COVID relief plan is a balm for Orthodox Jews
It’s highly unlikely that members of Congress had Jewish education, advanced Torah study or even Orthodox Jews in their minds when forging the ambitious American Rescue Plan that, after being signed into law by President Biden last week, will infuse nearly $2 trillion into the economy to counter the effects of the past year’s COVID…
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Opinion Why the Arab Joint List is the party that best represents my Jewish values
I am one of the millions of Israelis who are planning to vote in Israel’s national election on Tuesday — the country’s fourth in less than two years. This time around, 13 parties are competing; 11 are Jewish parties that span the political spectrum, and two are Palestinian-led: Ra’am and the Joint List, a coalition…
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Opinion Is Naftali Bennett Israel’s Ted Cruz? Comparisons to help you make sense of the Israeli election.
Keeping track of the myriad players in Israel’s election on Tuesday can be dizzying, even though we’ve seen this movie before, as this is the Jewish state’s fourth balloting in less than two years. For confused Americans who want to follow along but are unsure how to understand all of the major players — what’s…
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Opinion The ‘Hymietown’ affair degraded Black-Jewish relations. Jesse Jackson wasn’t the real culprit
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