Opinion

• Opinion

  Transforming the warmth of the Persian community into something new

  Previous Article Next Article As an Iranian Jew, I take pride in the warmth, hospitality, and intense affection and love that is displayed in my community. We greet each other with two kisses and warm hugs. Grandparents do not gently kiss their grandchildren but inhale them with affection, often whispering “gorboonet beram,” — I will…

  By Saba Soomekh

  3 min read
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  Opinion

  The (Jewish) world is flat(tening)

  Previous Article Next Article The first Saturday in quarantine, my family joined a Zoom havdalah led by our synagogue’s cantor. Faces of our friends and fellow congregants filled a couple dozen boxes on the then-novel screen, many holding flames aloft. I told the cantor we should keep doing it long after the pandemic passed: Havdalah…

  By Jodi Rudoren May 24, 2020 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  An opportunity to confront white supremacy and create a Jewish, intersectional future

  Previous Article Next Article As a diversity, equity, and inclusion leader within the Jewish world, I am rarely shocked by what I hear. But right before the lockdowns came into effect, I was. I spoke with a few colleagues, friends, and clients about their experiences being in a community facing a pandemic. One colleague said,…

  By Jared Jackson May 24, 2020 | 3 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 There’s a shocking new report on civilian deaths in Gaza. If only it were accurate 

  

• 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

  A wakeup call: You are your brother’s keeper

  Previous Article Next Article Kol yisrael aravim ze baze — all of Israel is responsible for one another. Of course, in the era of the current plague, we might better say kol anashim aravim ze baze — all people are responsible for one another. We are responsible for wearing a mask, for ensuring that those…

  By Sarah Wildman May 24, 2020 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  How the pandemic will change Jewish philanthropy

  Previous Article Next Article New York, December 1st, 2021 My dear colleague, I understand you’ve been locked up in an Ashram for the last two years and you’ve missed the pandemic. No great loss, believe me. Lucky you to come down from the Himalayas and be vaccinated right away at the Gates Center in Katmandu!…

  By Andrés Spokoiny May 24, 2020 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Chabad emissaries are stepping into communal gaps – for good

  Previous Article Next Article The Brooklyn Botanical Garden is a stone’s throw from my house. I pass its gated entrance on my walks along Eastern Parkway several times a week and promise myself to visit soon. But the last time I strolled under its gorgeous cherry trees was two years ago. It’s a little like…

  By Baila Olidort May 24, 2020 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  Online Judaism is an echo chamber. Will we ever see those we disagree with again?

  Previous Article Next Article I’m hardly the first to observe that the speed with which so much Jewish communal life leaped online in the first weeks of shutdown was head-snapping. I’ve been to more Zoom classes, Zoom Shabbat services, Zoom concerts and ceremonies, more Zoom funerals and shivahs and bar mitzvahs in six weeks than…

  By Dahlia Lithwick May 24, 2020 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Our history is full of sorrow and salvation. This won’t change us.

  Previous Article Next Article How will the coronavirus outbreak transform Jewish life? I think that’s the wrong question. In our long history we have weathered many storms without being fundamentally changed. We’re still here, as Mark Twain pointed out, after all the great empires of the ancient world were relegated to the history books. We’ve…

  By Matt Brooks May 24, 2020 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  The end of Jewish day school

  Previous Article Next Article In late summer and early spring of each year, as registration fees, payments and tuition schedules are due, conversations about the “day-school crisis” light up Modern Orthodox social media. Devastated parents begin to bemoan the astronomical cost of private school tuition on top of the already high cost of living for…

  By Bethany Mandel May 24, 2020 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  We will cherish our shuls – and the homes that replaced them during this time

  Previous Article Next Article I’m not into prognosticating (I’ve tried, to poor results) so I don’t feel confident making predictions about how our Jewish world will be different when we emerge from our figurative holes, hopefully soon. But I have, if not prophecies, then hopes. And they are predicated on what our collective confinement should,…

  May 24, 2020 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  Can Jewish journalism survive? It’s up to you.

  Previous Article Next Article To understand how the COVID-19 pandemic will affect Jewish media, just look at non-Jewish media. For years now, the forces that have wreaked havoc, forced change and inspired innovation in the general media have done exactly the same in the confines of Jewish media. Tens of thousands of journalists had already…

  By Rob Eshman May 24, 2020 | 3 min read