In the Forward’s opinion section, you’ll find analysis and essays from diverse corners of the Jewish world.
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Opinion
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Opinion
A Toronto store posted an anti-Semitic slogan. Did the Jewish community overreact?
It started out simple: A small health food store in downtown Toronto called Foodbenders took to Instagram to proclaim that Zionists weren’t welcome at their store. Local news anchor Jamie Gutfreund took some screenshots and condemned the store on his Instagram account. View this post on Instagram At a time when racism is front and…
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Opinion I’m a Jewish Republican. Ilhan Omar is a dear friend.
I’m Jewish. I’m a Republican. And Ilhan Omar is one of my close friends, even though we agree on very little politically. I know this may sound surprising to people who have only heard the version of Ilhan portrayed in the media. But I have known Ilhan for almost a decade, and I can attest…
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Opinion How Israel made the occupation taboo in schools
Annexation doesn’t mean much to Israelis. Israeli publicist and author Rami Livni wrote captured it aptly when he wrote about a few weeks ago. “The reason Israelis accept annexation is not because they believe in it, it is because of a lack of knowledge,” he wrote in Haaretz. “They don’t know what annexation is. They…
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Opinion In the Talmud, God admits He’s wrong. There’s a lesson there about free speech.
This article is part of a new series called “On Persuasion.” We asked thought leaders to consider what persuasion means to them. What works in terms of persuading people? Is it moot in 2020? What is the Jewish value of persuasion? Should we be opening our minds to other points of view, or closing them…
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Opinion The Democratic Party platform on Israel is totally worthless
As with all Pyrrhic victories, those in the Jewish community celebrating the rather conservative Democratic Party draft platform position on Israel do not appreciate the broader trends that are inexorably moving against them. By pushing back against the use of the very word “occupation” to describe the status quo in the West Bank and East…
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Opinion Letter | Racism played no part in my parents’ decision to send me to day school
Dear Editor, Racism played no part in my parents’ decision for my brother, sister, and me to have a day school education. In 1949 my parents absorbed a pay cut and moved to an apartment above a store on a busy street after they learned that Cincinnati had begun a day school and Nashville hadn’t….
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Opinion What the taboo on criticizing Israel can teach us about cancel culture
Last week, in the aftermath of Bari Weiss’s resignation from the New York Times, some noted the hypocrisy of conservative “free speech warriors” who nevertheless enjoyed shutting down open debate about Israel. I think they were right to note the hypocrisy, but wrong to think it is politically one-sided. Having fought the Jewish communal chill…
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Opinion The media is splintering. That’s a good thing.
There is a revolution in the air, but it’s not the one you’ve heard of happening on the streets. Like many changes in the intellectual weather, it is both in plain sight and not yet fully visible. The revolution is a series of events that have become a pattern: Yascha Mounk founding a new “community”…
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Opinion American churches think they can ignore Covid and racial justice. But they aren’t going away.
On a late June Sunday, Americans were treated to jaw-dropping images of a festive, mask-free patriotic rally with Vice President Pence at a Dallas megachurch, First Baptist. Local COVID-19 cases were already rising sharply, on their way to making Texas one of the epicenters of the summer surge, and unprecedented protests for police reform and…
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Opinion A new intelligentsia is pushing back against wokeness
William Lloyd Garrison, one of the United States’ most important abolitionists, lived with a bounty on his head for much of his life. His newspaper, The Liberator, advocated for an immediate end to slavery, and he faced down a lynch mob more than once for his writing. One of his avid readers was a formerly…
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Opinion Black Lives Matter has exposed a generational divide for Soviet Jews
I have a memory from just after we moved to America. We still had to walk a fair distance to get groceries, and I recall a hot summer day and a long walk in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Most vividly, I recall my mother’s face as we entered the store. She was beaming at the fully-stocked…
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