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
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Opinion
We will cherish our shuls – and the homes that replaced them during this time
Previous Article Next Article I’m not into prognosticating (I’ve tried, to poor results) so I don’t feel confident making predictions about how our Jewish world will be different when we emerge from our figurative holes, hopefully soon. But I have, if not prophecies, then hopes. And they are predicated on what our collective confinement should,…
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Opinion Can Jewish journalism survive? It’s up to you.
Previous Article Next Article To understand how the COVID-19 pandemic will affect Jewish media, just look at non-Jewish media. For years now, the forces that have wreaked havoc, forced change and inspired innovation in the general media have done exactly the same in the confines of Jewish media. Tens of thousands of journalists had already…
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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…
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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….
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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,…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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