Opinion

• Opinion

  Even during a plague, choice is destiny

  BG IMG LINK Previous Article Next Article In the book of Job, after Job has suffered great losses, his friends come to comfort him. Finding Job sitting on the ground covered in boils, they throw dust up in the air and onto their heads (Job 2:12). A modern Israeli scholar, Meir Weiss, suggests this may…

  By David Wolpe

  2 min read
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  Opinion

  Anti-COVID cleansing gets a lesson from the Torah: We don’t control everything.

  BG IMG LINK Previous Article Next Article I’ve slid back into old habits over the past two weeks. I struggle with obsessive hand and body washing, as a way of coping with past sexual trauma. My body feels polluted and tainted, and I wash it obsessively to provide some momentary relief from these feelings. At…

  By Joel Swanson Mar 31, 2020 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  This Passover will be different from all others — and there’s freedom in that

  BG IMG LINK Previous Article Next Article Passover is the birthday of the Jewish people. We went down to Egypt as a family, but we left Egypt as a people. For thousands of years, we have celebrated that birthday, but this year’s Passover will be different from all other Passovers. During the original Passover, Jewish…

  By Shoshanna Keats-Jaskoll Mar 31, 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

  In the 11th plague, all the world are neighbors

  BG IMG LINK Previous Article Next Article Though we will be without guests this Passover, we will remain with neighbors. The eating of the pascal lamb was a collective event, a bonfire frenzy of hungry spiritual brothers (and sisters). But the story of Exodus begins with neighbors. After all, the Egyptians and Hebrews lived side…

  By Noah Lubin Mar 31, 2020 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  In the face of coronavirus, our homes must become shuls and yeshivas

  On Wednesday, March 18th, I stood in the street, and I cried. No, I wasn’t at a funeral (back when we even were able to hold those). I’m not usually one to express my emotions that way anyway, even in that sort of setting. There was virtually nobody else around me when it happened, and…

  By Eli Steinberg Mar 30, 2020 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Darkness is the absence of recognition

  BG IMG LINK Previous Article Next Article “Moses held out his arm toward the sky and thick darkness descended upon all the land of Egypt for three days. People could not see one another, and for three days no one could get up from where he was.” (Exodus 10:22-23) When he was twelve, Aryeh Even…

  By Noah Efron Mar 30, 2020 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  For women trapped in abusive relationships, quarantine can be more dangerous than COVID-19

  For most of us, the shelter-in-place order that followed the outbreak of the new coronavirus is a challenge. But for women trapped in abusive relationships, being confined to the home can be more life-threatening than COVID-19, the disease the virus causes. Domestic violence afflicts one in three women nationally, according to the Centers for Disease…

  By Marisa Fox-Bevilacqua Mar 28, 2020 | 6 min read
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  Opinion

  The silver lining of Benny Gantz’s astonishing betrayal

  Israeli politicians, with their famous lack of principles and shifting priorities, often make fools of prognosticators trying to discern the direction in which the country is headed. Along the way, they also tend to make fools of their own supporters, or anyone who placed a cautious amount of faith in them. Still, opposition leader Benny…

  By Abe Silberstein Mar 27, 2020 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Benny Gantz’s shameful betrayal of Israeli Arabs

  In an unexpected turn of events, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s main challenger, Benny Gantz, has been elected Knesset speaker. He won this position by securing the votes of the very right-wing groups that have been relentlessly delegitimizing and questioning his leadership for the past 14 months, while his left-wing allies — all of whom…

  By Muhammad Shehada Mar 26, 2020 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Coronavirus is going to radicalize millennials

  This pandemic is going to change us. It’s going to radicalize my generation. It has to radicalize us. I’m a millennial, born roughly in the middle of the millennial generation as defined by demographers. This means one of the first formative events of my childhood was the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, followed by the…

  By Joel Swanson Mar 26, 2020 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Dear President Trump: A fellow New Yorker is begging you – Make America COVID free again!

  Dear President Trump, I am a native New Yorker, just like you. I grew up in Manhattan and reside in Brooklyn. I am an attorney (yes, one of those people everyone loves to hate) and have a husband and a rescue puppy named Teddy. We are anxious, scared and practicing SOCIAL DISTANCING. SOCIAL DISTANCING! pic.twitter.com/H2jR59wArx…

  By Sophie Solomon Mar 25, 2020 | 2 min read