Opinion

• Opinion

  Why I Have Come to Support Defunding the Police

  The murder of George Floyd was a revelation for white America. The image of a man lying on the street for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, his body limp beneath the officer’s knee, has transfixed and could transform the nation. To witness the breath of life casually pulled from a man’s body is to see…

  By Rabbi Sharon Brous

  4 min read
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  Opinion

  You don’t have to choose between Black Lives Matter and Israel

  All of last week and into this one, Americans grieved and demonstrated and were beaten in the streets by police as we protested George Floyd’s murder. It is an emotional time, with the wins of the Black Lives Matter movement making change seem, finally, possible. Yet existing communal tensions remained. All week, I’ve been asked…

  By Carly Pildis Jun 10, 2020 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  As the next generation of Modern Orthodox leaders, we demand real change.

  We are Modern Orthodox success stories: products of day school education, Jewish summer camps, and gap years in Israel. We are active participants in Jewish life on our campuses, ardent Zionists, and Torah enthusiasts. Our religious upbringings have taught us that Jewish communities do not stand idly by when faced with injustice. And George Floyd’s…

  By Chantal Polinsky, and Jonathan Katzman, and Rachel Rapps Jun 10, 2020 | 4 min read

Columnists View All

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

  

• Jay Michaelson American Jews were played — now what?

  

• Rob Eshman The challah that changed everything: Tracing Jewish baking back to Poland

  

• Nora Berman The Kennedy Center canceled all its ‘woke’ programming — so why is this Jewish musical OK?

  

• Dan Perry Israel’s new gift to the far right could help end the Gaza war

  

• Emily Tamkin Entering motherhood — and an obsession with the works of an Italian Jewish literary hero

  

The Latest

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  Opinion

  ‘You can’t reconcile a nation that’s never been equal.’ Three black pastors reflect on this moment.

  We’re living through a historic time. On the heels of a devastating coronavirus pandemic that left over 100,000 Americans dead and 25% of Americans without a job, racist episodes started to hit our newsfeeds. We watched as Ahmaud Arbery, a young black man jogging near his home, was hunted down and lynched by his neighbors….

  By Batya Ungar-Sargon Jun 9, 2020 | 11 min read
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  Opinion

  Jews came to America to escape darkness. For African Americans, America was darkness.

  This weekend, I marched across the Brooklyn Bridge. To the left, through the thick cables and ropes of the bridge, I could see the Statue of Liberty, clear and strong. My grandmother had learned the Emma Lazarus poem by heart when she was a child, so I memorized it, too, and now the words came…

  By Shira Telushkin Jun 9, 2020 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  It’s time for the Conference of Presidents to kick out Mort Klein

  Louis Brandeis, the first Jew to be confirmed as a Supreme Court justice, embodied the image of the liberal moderate so famously taken to task in Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” On race, Justice Brandeis usually sided with progress but was not particularly outspoken in favor of racial justice and equality….

  By Abe Silberstein Jun 8, 2020 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  I’m so tired of white guilt

  There was light from fires in the streets. Noise from the clanging of trash cans and sirens was in the background when I called my father this week. “Son, you remember the 1968 Washington DC riots,” he said. I do. But not everyone does. For some, the protests this week, like the racism they oppose,…

  By Nathan Byrd Jun 5, 2020 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  ‘It’s on us.’ Jewish clergy weigh in on the role of Jews in the aftermath of George Floyd

  The country has been reeling since the murder of George Floyd in police custody nearly two weeks ago. Citizens have taken to the streets in protest and come up against heavily armed police. Dozens of Jewish organizations have added their voices to those condemning racist violence against black communities and standing in solidarity with demonstrators….

  By Forward Staff Jun 5, 2020 | 20 min read
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  Opinion

  Editorial | After months of silence, a scream

  Last April my daughter joined a “Day of Silence” to protest the discrimination LGBTQ students face in schools. It’s a national thing, organized at her middle school by the Gender-Sexuality Alliance whose meetings she goes to most Fridays. The kids wore special black T-shirts and tried not to talk all day. Then — and this…

  By Jodi Rudoren Jun 5, 2020 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Memo to the NYT: Black lives aren’t up for debate

  Consider two articles that the venerable New York Times published in 1939, in the final months before the formal outbreak of World War II. In May 1939, the M.S. St. Louis set sail from Hamburg, Germany, for Havana, Cuba, carrying 937 passengers, nearly all of them Jewish refugees. When the Cuban government refused to admit…

  By Joel Swanson Jun 4, 2020 | 5 min read
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  Opinion

  Jews stand for debate- which means backing the NYT

  Jews believe in argument. Even Jews who have never looked at a page of Talmud know that debate is part of our DNA. Our greatest thinkers were our best arguers. Our most precious inheritance is that tradition of argument. This isn’t something to be hoarded. On the contrary, it is something that needs to be…

  By Ari Hoffman Jun 4, 2020 | 4 min read