In the Forward’s opinion section, you’ll find analysis and essays from diverse corners of the Jewish world.
To pitch an opinion piece, email our Opinion Editor, Talya Zax.
Opinion
-
Opinion
Like COVID-19, anti-Semitism is adaptive, insidious, easily finds new hosts, and has no real ‘cure’
Previous Article Next Article Aside from the medical and economic uncertainties we face in these hard times, the COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare for the Jewish community the looming threats we face from anti-Semitism and extremism. While anti-Semitism was serious before the COVID-19 crisis – See: Pittsburgh, Poway, Monsey, Jersey City – it has become…
-
Opinion From real estate to IT departments: Jewish investment post-corona
Previous Article Next Article What Jewish investment has paid off the best during the corona pandemic? The answer must be the trivial amount devoted before and during the virus era to IT capabilities in our institutions, which has enabled, almost overnight, a vast amount of worship and programming to be put online to enthusiastic audiences….
-
Opinion Shabbat matters even more now
Previous Article Next Article I bow at the knees, looking to the east, in my kitchen. First left, then right, then center. As Kabbalat Shabbat services proceed on my iPad, streaming my synagogue on Facebook Live, I bow during “L’Cha Dodi,” as I have every Friday night for the past eight weeks that I’ve sheltered…
Columnists View All
The Latest
-
Opinion American Jews will abandon Israel if it annexes territory under cover of COVID
Previous Article Next Article Change is coming for the American Jewish community. This change will not be the result of the current pandemic, but the pandemic will offer it cover — a microscopic Trojan Horse. The resulting damage to the American Jewish-Israel relationship may be irreparable. The government currently forming in Israel has only one…
-
Opinion Climate change, inequality, anti-Semitism, occupation: Corona is a chance for a reset
Previous Article Next Article Never has the period between Passover and Shavuot been like this. The 49 days of counting the Omer, to which I have been a bit too episodically attentive over the years, have never had more significance to me. Today, these seven weeks provide a measuring stick for our confinement during the…
-
Opinion Everything we relied on has failed us. Where can we turn but to God?
Previous Article Next Article There is a section of the morning prayers that not everyone says. I myself, in a pre-coronavirus world, found myself often omitting it, a casualty of hectic schedules and a busy world that would just not stop. Until it did. The prayer is sourced in a Midrashic text (Tana Dvei Eliyahu,…
-
Opinion A newfound humility: We’re in this together.
Previous Article Next Article The unprecedented nature of what we’re experiencing and its radical implication for virtually every aspect of our individual and collective lives means that we cannot yet say how our reality will be permanently altered in the wake of the coronavirus. But there is one realization from this still early chapter of…
-
Opinion We were ‘building-rich’ and ‘millennial-hungry’. Now, a reversal.
Previous Article Next Article As a Jewish community, we will hopefully soon dig ourselves out of the COVID-19 pandemic. We will look for meaning and opportunities from this unprecedented crisis. The Hebrew word for crisis is “mash’ber,” a word also used to refer to the birthing stool upon which a woman in ancient times sat…
-
Opinion Judaism is evolving. Sacred life on screen is here to stay
Previous Article Next Article Every day at 3 p.m., for the past seven weeks, D. sits up in his hospital bed in Manhattan, turns on his iPad, and joins me along with 50 or so others from all over the world, at our afternoon minyan, called Daily SoulSpa. Like millions worldwide, D. now finds solace…
-
Opinion Boomers becoming Zoomers is a feminist triumph!
Previous Article Next Article About a month after my husband and I — denizens of the pandemic’s most vulnerable age cohort — quarantined ourselves, I realized to my surprise that I was becoming a black belt in Zoom. Not only had I participated in two online seders and successfully navigated a flotilla of virtual meetings…
-
Opinion The universe is telling us to dial it down
Previous Article Next Article This pandemic has influenced my life as a Jew as well as a citizen of the world. We’ve talked much about the “calling” or rather “screaming” to heal the earth. God’s Bereshit, the pure creation, has been tampered with. Jews and non-Jews know this by now. I will never look at…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
Film & TV ‘Bojack Horseman’ creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg on his new, ‘unapologetically Jewish’ family affair
- 2
News ADL chief attacks Zohran Mamdani, but gets his facts wrong
- 3
News Meet the Jewish senator emerging as Chuck Schumer’s heir apparent
- 4
Culture The Kennedy Center canceled its ‘woke’ programming — so why is this Jewish musical OK?
In Case You Missed It
-
Looking Forward How a beloved TV detective embodies a central Jewish value
-
Culture Is Netflix’s new show the most Jewish cartoon ever?
-
Fast Forward Global hunger monitor declares famine in parts of Gaza; Israel rejects the determination
-
Opinion There’s a shocking new report on civilian deaths in Gaza. If only it were accurate.
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
