Opinion

• Opinion

  Please do not host a “Christian seder”

  It’s time to discuss the “Christian seder.” If you are having one this year, or are thinking about doing one next year, here are some helpful tips from Jewish practice: Don’t. Please, we are begging you, don’t do it. I’m not suggesting you not attend a seder if your Jewish friend invites you; take that…

  By Joachim Steinberg

  3 min read
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  Opinion

  Sanders lost the democratic primary. But he won the moral argument.

  There’s something deeply symbolic about the fact that the most successful Jewish presidential candidate in U.S. history dropped out of the race on the eve of Passover, our people’s holiday of liberation. And that he’s dropping out at a time when recent news has proven him more correct about our politics than ever before. On…

  By Joel Swanson Apr 8, 2020 | 5 min read
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  Opinion

  Editorial | Coronavirus claims another victim: Jewish journalism

  There is so much to mourn the loss of these days: our inability to be around communal tables for Seder tonight, our freedom to gather for brises and bnei mitzvah, our confidence in the future — and, most of all, every individual taken by the terrible Covid-19. But save some grief for the Jewish Chronicle,…

  By Jodi Rudoren Apr 8, 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 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

  Bernie’s campaign is dead. Long live Bernie.

  On Wednesday, April 8, 2020 Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders announced he was dropping out of the Democratic presidential primary. Many post-mortems on his campaign will likely focus on what it means for his “faction” of progressives. But whether or not it survives as a cohesive faction in the future, there is no doubt that the…

  By Alex Zeldin Apr 8, 2020 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Don’t blame haredi Jews for the spread of coronavirus. Blame their media and leadership.

  In New York and Israel, ultra-Orthodox communities have been among the hardest hit by the novel coronavirus pandemic. Some community members point to a lack of access to mainstream media outlets to explain how this epidemic came to ravage the haredi community. Community members didn’t know the extent of the virus or the way it…

  By Miriam Moster Apr 8, 2020 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  I repressed my parents’ final Seder before Auschwitz – until coronavirus

  My parents were among the few: a married couple who survived the Auschwitz-Birkenau killing machine, a string of slave labor camps and death marches. In March 1944, the Nazis marched into their Hungarian hometown of Sevlus, a prosperous agricultural city surrounded by the Carpathian Mountains. Liquidating its Jews was a top priority, pursued with industrial…

  By Helga Berliner Weinbach Apr 8, 2020 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  The loss of the Novominsker Rebbe, Rabbi Yaakov Perlow, leaves a gaping hole in our community

  I will not write about Rabbi Yaakov Perlow, the Novominsker Rebbe, who passed away suddenly this morning. I will not write about him because I simply cannot, for several reasons. First of all, my personal interactions with him were limited, to just a handful of private conversations. But more importantly, to describe him accurately would…

  By Eli Steinberg Apr 7, 2020 | 5 min read
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  Opinion

  No, I haven’t read all of Proust. Fighting the coronavirus humble brag

  David Hockney has painted 10 new iPad works. Barbra Streisand is working on her memoir. On Instragram people are baking bread and working out. Friends are calling to say that they’ve Marie-Kondo’d their homes. And all their getting-things-done is stressing me out. What this is is an epidemic of humble brags. People are knitting and…

  By Tom Teicholz Apr 7, 2020 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  The media’s obsession with haredi wrongdoing exposes its bigotry

  I wore a mask on Purim. Not a Mordechai or Esther mask, and not the face mask my wife and I wear when food shopping these days. It was the kind of simple dust mask I use when I mow the lawn. I used a felt marker to draw a large smile on the mask,…

  Apr 6, 2020 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  I’m a pediatrician and a parent. We should send our kids to summer camp.

  I recently received notification that my kids’ overnight summer camp in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin was “monitoring the COVID-19 situation closely” as they evaluate their summer programming. The leadership at our camp, the Olin Sang Ruby Union Institute, and other overnight summer camps across the U.S. are undoubtedly worried about the prospect of cancelling camp altogether on…

  By Jason Kane Apr 6, 2020 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Are you protecting your child’s caregiver? Or putting them at risk?

  Since the outbreak of COVID-19, we’ve seen an outpouring of altruistic human responses. Communities have been supporting the sick and quarantined in beautiful ways. But I have also witnessed terribly misguided behavior, often from the same people, ignoring the health and well being of those employed in their homes. Many of the families in my…

  By Stephanie Pell Apr 6, 2020 | 4 min read