Opinion

• Opinion

  Let there be camp — please!

  Let there be camp. That is what I pray to I’m-not-sure-who each night of this pandemic. With every announcement like Thursday’s that school in New Jersey will stay closed at least until May 15, with every email message like the one I got last week saying “Eben’s Bar Mitzvah has been moved to Zoom,” with…

  By Jodi Rudoren

  4 min read
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  Opinion

  Give your stimulus check to the needy: It’s the Jewish thing to do

  When Passover ended, I turned my computer back on and discovered that I had received my stimulus check. I sat there for a minute, just looking at it. It’s not every day $1,200 materializes into your checking account: I had the gleeful, surreal feeling like a genie’s wish had been granted, or that I had…

  By Jonah S. Boyarin Apr 17, 2020 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Labour’s leaked anti-Semitism report is just a cover for Jeremy Corbyn

  The dream that its new leader Keir Starmer would bring unity to the British Labour Party lasted all of a week. Over the weekend, an internal report authored during the final months of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership on the party’s response to its years-long anti-Semitism crisis was leaked. The document was intended for the Equality and…

  By Liam Hoare Apr 14, 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 There’s a shocking new report on civilian deaths in Gaza. If only it were accurate.

  

• Nora Berman Is Netflix’s new show the most Jewish cartoon ever?

  

• 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 Palestinian peace activist’s arrest shows that we need solidarity, not ‘peace’

  Last Thursday, Hamas’s security forces arrested Gazan activist, Rami Aman. His crime? Organizing a Zoom video chat with Israelis to discuss life in Gaza. Rami was charged with holding a “normalization activity” that Hamas says whitewashes Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory and in turn betrays the Palestinian people and their sacrifices. There’s no two ways…

  By Muhammad Shehada Apr 14, 2020 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Wearing a face mask? You’re doing a mitzvah. Make a brachah!

  Among the Jewish tradition’s most cherished values is the sanctity of human life. With a few notable exceptions, one must not endanger their life in order to fulfill a religious obligation. And one must violate even the most significant commandments in order to save another person’s life. Saving one life is regarded as the equivalent…

  By Michael Knopf Apr 13, 2020 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  The media’s latest hypocrisy: Blaming Orthodox victims of coronavirus

  Orthodox Jews don’t use technology on the Sabbath or holidays. When two-day holidays fall on Thursday and Friday, as Passover did last week, it means three days off the grid. But when the peaceful three-day holidays drew to a close on Saturday night, I was filled with a sense of dread. I knew my inbox…

  By Eliezer Brand Apr 13, 2020 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Coronavirus is deepening the divide between Orthodox and liberal Jews

  When my mom-friends and I were discussing where to do our Passover shopping last weekend, one sheepishly asked, “Is it anti-Semitic for me not to want to go to the kosher supermarket because of coronavirus?” Yes, I immediately answered. While some Hasidic neighborhoods in Brooklyn and upstate New York — and Israel! — had been…

  By Jodi Rudoren Apr 12, 2020 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Coronavirus is a fire drill for climate change

  This Passover, abandoning bread for matzah will hardly register as a disruptive change. Our experience of the coronavirus has upended everything. It turns out our world is much more fragile than we thought. Things we have always taken for granted — that grocery stores will be stocked with food; hospitals will have available beds and…

  By Rabbi Jennie Rosenn Apr 12, 2020 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Less than 1 in 10 doctors survived the Warsaw Ghetto. They, too, lacked for supplies.

  My daughter is a nurse in Teaneck, New Jersey, an early epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic. My daughter-in-law is a nurse in an upstate New York town where hospitals are raided for protective gear and ventilators because it hasn’t hit hard yet. My go-to doctor and my husband’s cardiologist are in Teaneck. My neighbor works…

  By Jeanette Friedman Apr 10, 2020 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  We must recommit to helping refugees. We all come from Egypt.

  As we face enormous uncertainties in dealing with COVID-19, we turn to our values to ground us. We confront the thin line between health and illness and we are inextricably connected in our collective desire for safety and health. We share the fragility of existence with an unbowed desire to connect with those suffering from…

  By Aaron Weininger and Robert Aronson Apr 9, 2020 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  What if Jewish journalism disappears?

  Just hours before the seder, British Jews heard the shocking news that the nation’s leading national-circulation Jewish newspapers, The Jewish Chronicle and The Jewish News, were being liquidated. The Kessler Foundation, which owns both papers, has run out of money. When local advertising dried up because of the coronavirus, “voluntary liquidation” became the only alternative….

  By Jonathan D. Sarna Apr 8, 2020 | 3 min read