Opinion

• Opinion

  What Poland’s anti-Semitic ‘all lives matter’ moment can teach Americans

  On Sunday, Poland will hold its presidential election, after postponing the original election date in May due to coronavirus lockdowns. The incumbent president, Andrzej Duda of the right-wing Law and Justice Party, is running for reelection to a second term, and while President Duda enjoyed a comfortable lead for most of the campaign, recent polls…

  By Joel Swanson

  4 min read
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  Opinion

  Israel will lose my entire generation if it goes ahead with annexation

  As a kid from Toronto, Canada, I grew up enmeshed in one of North America’s largest Jewish communities. Part and parcel of virtually all those Jewish spaces was a kind of Zionism that was strong, but ultimately ambiguous. Support for Israel was of paramount importance, but what that support really meant — especially at moments…

  By Sarah Farb Jun 22, 2020 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  The witch hunts of the left revive Soviet ghosts

  Forty years ago next month, I came to the United States from what was then the Soviet Union. Less than four years ago, I wrote about my worry that certain elements of both the old USSR and Vladimir Putin’s new authoritarian Russia were on the rise in the country I now call home: on the…

  By Cathy Young Jun 22, 2020 | 6 min read

Columnists View All

• Jodi Rudoren This is my last column as editor of the Forward

  

• Jay Michaelson Mamdani’s victory is an opportunity for Jews to relearn the art of disagreement

  

• Rob Eshman Want to understand what’s wrong with the ‘pro-Palestine’ movement? This Palestinian can help

  

• Nora Berman Did Netanyahu coerce Trump into attacking Iran? No — but he tried with Obama

  

• Dan Perry Trump wants to control the Israeli judiciary. Uh, good luck

  

• Emily Tamkin Zohran Mamdani’s victory proves it: The ‘gotcha’ mode of fighting antisemitism has to go

  

The Latest

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  Opinion

  The idolatry of smashing idols

  For millennia, Jews have been obsessed with the danger of idols. Monotheism was born in the Chaldean back room where Abraham smashed his father’s figurines, men and women of clay whose favor was courted by those of flesh and blood. The Bible warns endlessly of idolatry, and its anxious denunciations testify to both the danger…

  By Ari Hoffman Jun 22, 2020 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Letter | Responses to ‘It’s not Black Lives Matter’s job to make you comfortable about Israel’

  Dear Editor, In a recent OpEd, Abe Silberstein argued that “It’s not Black Lives Matter’s job to make you feel comfortable about Israel.” What exactly does that mean? Consider the possibility that we are not centering our concerns, but rather that we recognize when others seek to justify their dismissal of our concerns. If it…

  Jun 21, 2020 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  Amid the pandemic and protests, celebrating 50 years of marching for LQBTQ rights

  Fifty years ago, in June of 1970, the gay communities in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and New York City gathered to commemorate the Stonewall Riots that had happened a year earlier, the moment when many say the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender civil rights movement began. In Los Angeles, led by Rev. Troy Perry,…

  By Denise L. Eger Jun 21, 2020 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  I am the architect of the U.S.-Israel police exchange. Don’t believe the lies.

  The nationwide demonstrations following the horrific killing of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, by a white police officer in Minneapolis have launched a pressing conversation about race and law enforcement in America. Unfortunately, some are cynically trying to drag Israel into the debate, claiming the Jewish state is responsible for incidents of police brutality…

  By Steven L. Pomerantz Jun 19, 2020 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  It’s not Black Lives Matter’s job to make you feel comfortable about Israel

  Four years ago, the Movement for Black Lives, the umbrella group that Black Lives Matter is a part of, endorsed a boycott of Israel on the ground that it was committing “genocide” against the Palestinians. It led to a crisis for many Jews anxious to be part of the movement yet distraught by the anti-Israel…

  By Abe Silberstein Jun 18, 2020 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Could Israel’s gestures towards Gaza during the pandemic turn into a new policy?

  This week marks the 13th anniversary of Hamas’s violent takeover of Gaza. In response to that takeover, Israel established a punishing blockade and a series of sanctions, including cutting power and heavily restricting the movement of individuals and imports and exports. These sanctions have ebbed and flowed, getting stricter during escalations, and loosening up in…

  By Muhammad Shehada Jun 17, 2020 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  I faced anti-Semitism growing up. It pales in comparison to the racism my Black Jewish children face

  It’s the 1960’s. There aren’t many Jews on the block where my chaotic post-Holocaust, fear-nurturing Jewish family lives, in this genteel Toronto neighborhood. There are fewer Jews at my primary school where we learn to sing “Jesus Loves Me,” “Onward Christian Soldiers” and “Rule Britannia.” Like zealots, we are taught to belt them out. Too…

  By Channa Verbian Jun 17, 2020 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  De Blasio just lost the Orthodox. It was a long time coming.

  A very public clash is developing right now between the Haredi community in Brooklyn and Mayor Bill de Blasio. Over the last few days, the Parks Department welded shut the gates of public parks, mainly in neighborhoods populated by Orthodox Jews. Meanwhile, parks in non-Jewish areas have been allowed to remain open, with no police…

  By Eliezer Brand Jun 17, 2020 | 3 min read