Opinion

• Opinion

  What The Bard Panel On Anti-Semitism Taught Me About My Own Jewishness

  In early November of 1989, my mother and I immigrated from the Soviet Union. Three days after we left, the wall collapsed, bringing to an end the official state entity we were escaping. We left because we were Jewish. For seven months, we traveled between two worlds. HIAS monitored our progress, from the place we…

  By Nikita Nelin

  9 min read
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  Opinion

  The Jewish Prayer That Guided – And Defined – Our Coverage Of The Pittsburgh Massacre

  A writer searches for the right language to mourn those slain in the Pittsburgh synagogue

  By David Shribman Oct 21, 2019 | 5 min read
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  Opinion

  A Year Later, a Catholic Mother of Future Rabbi Reflects on Their Home: Squirrel Hill

  The most solemn day in Judaism, Yom Kippur, was a grim reminder that the 11 Jews gunned down during morning prayer at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue had not had their names written in the Book of Life last year. Instead, as Jews everywhere gathered earlier this month in synagogues fortified with security, those 11…

  By Cindy Skrzycki Oct 21, 2019 | 4 min read

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The Latest

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  Opinion

  Letter | Why Is Everyone Lying About Bard? Every Other Account Proves Ungar-Sargon Right.

  Ever since Batya Ungar-Sargon described being protested at Bard College’s recent conference on — irony alert — racism and anti-Semitism, the college and the Hannah Arendt Center which hosted the conference have been in engaged in a full-court PR effort to recast the events and impugn her integrity. In four letters to the Forward, some…

  By Shany Mor Oct 20, 2019 | 7 min read
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  Opinion

  Letter | What Will They Defend After Bard? Protesting Israel Outside A Holocaust Museum?

  Why did so many on the left react so angrily to Batya Ungar-Sargon’s op-ed, in which she complained about the fact that anti-Israel activists demonstrated against Israel at a panel on anti-Semitism at Bard College? So far, the only argument I’ve read is that Ruth Wisse said something disrespectful about the Palestinians a couple of…

  By Bernard Bohbot Oct 18, 2019 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  Letter To The Editor: In This Unique Moment, Zioness Speaks For Us

  Aiden Pink’s recent Forward article on Zioness piqued my interest because I was an early and enthusiastic supporter of the group. The timing of their launch was perfect. In recent years, several of my Temple Sinai students have returned from college shell-shocked by the virulent anti-Semitism masquerading as anti-Zionism they faced on campus. Israel, they…

  By Michael A. White Oct 17, 2019 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  A Year Since The Pittsburgh Massacre, What Have We Learned? A Q&A With Abe Foxman

  We are approaching the one year anniversary of the Tree of Life shooting in which Robert Bowers murdered 11 Jews at prayer. For the Yahrzeit, we will be rolling out a series of pieces reflecting on the tragedy, and what we’ve learned in the year since, beginning with an interview with Abe Foxman, the former…

  By Forward Staff Oct 16, 2019 | 8 min read
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  Opinion

  Dear Jewish Supporters of Donald Trump: What More Evidence Do You Need?

  Dear Jewish Supporters of Donald Trump, The last few weeks have been deeply troubling ones for our country. There is, of course, the ongoing impeachment drama involving an American president who, in an act of remarkable audacity, appears to have recruited foreign allies to join in attacking his political rivals at home. This is profoundly…

  By David N. Myers Oct 16, 2019 | 3 min read
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  Letters

  Letter to the Editor: I Was Misrepresented in Column About Protest at Bard College

  On Sunday, instead of building our family sukkah, instead of preparing for my daughter’s upcoming Bat Mitzvah, instead of doing the work that I needed to catch up on after traveling last week to present at the Hannah Arendt Center Conference on Racism and Antisemitism at Bard College, I spent the day fielding calls, texts,…

  By Shahanna McKinney-Baldon Oct 15, 2019 | 4 min read
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  Letters

  Letter to the Editor: Ungar-Sargon Chose to Leave Bard Conference

  To the Editor, As the assistant director of the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities at Bard College, I read Batya Ungar-Sargon’s recent column with dismay. She wrote: “But not one of my fellow speakers said a word. Two days later, I have not received a single note acknowledging what happened, which leaves me…

  By Samantha Hill Oct 14, 2019 | 2 min read
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  Letters

  Letter to the Editor: I Organized the Bard Conference, and Batya Ungar-Sargon Misrepresented What Happened

  To the Editor: I am the person who invited Batya Ungar-Sargon, the Opinion Editor of The Forward, to participate in a recent conference hosted by the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College, a conference where she contends in a column published Oct. 12 that she was protested for being Jewish and, as a result, “couldn’t…

  By Roger Berkowitz Oct 14, 2019 | 5 min read