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
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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Opinion Boomers becoming Zoomers is a feminist triumph!
Previous Article Next Article About a month after my husband and I — denizens of the pandemic’s most vulnerable age cohort — quarantined ourselves, I realized to my surprise that I was becoming a black belt in Zoom. Not only had I participated in two online seders and successfully navigated a flotilla of virtual meetings…
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Opinion The universe is telling us to dial it down
Previous Article Next Article This pandemic has influenced my life as a Jew as well as a citizen of the world. We’ve talked much about the “calling” or rather “screaming” to heal the earth. God’s Bereshit, the pure creation, has been tampered with. Jews and non-Jews know this by now. I will never look at…
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Opinion Renegotiating the tension between the hyper-local and the collective
Previous Article Next Article I am an urban planner by training, and I’ve long been curious about our community’s sense of place. In the wake of the pandemic, I’m wondering if we will see a shift in how we move between our public and private spaces, and how we think about Jewish places. Will it…
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Opinion We will – we must – gather again. One day.
Previous Article Next Article On November 18, 1656, Jacob Zahalon, a rabbi and a doctor, stood in an apartment in an Italian ghetto, shouting out a window to deliver his Hannukah sermon. Below him stood a number of Jews, unable to enter the synagogue. Why? The bubonic plague was afflicting the community, and no one…
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Opinion Fewer barriers, more intimacy
Previous Article Next Article It was during the first weekend of the lockdown that I attended my first online bat mitzvah. I happened to be at my computer during Shacharit services when Facebook notified me that my congregation was going live. As I watched, notifications popped up as my friends and contacts tuned in. As…
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Opinion Some koved for covid
Previous Article Next Article Like a favorite bra or gentlemen’s truss, Yiddishland during the pandemic continues to offer this Yiddish-head the greatest uplift, providing some virtual koved during covid. Given shelter at home rules, you’d think a Yiddish svive (reading group) might be the first casualty. We usually gear up with a nice selection of…
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