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
-
Opinion
Fighting Anti-Semitism Isn’t Just About Jews. It Kills Non-Jews, Too.
Anti-Semitism kills. Racism kills. Islamophobia kills. Homophobia kills. Bigotry kills. Each of these forms of bias uproots lives, devastates families, and destroys dreams. They kill violently and they kill painfully. Most shockingly of all, they kill indiscriminately. As a Jewish community, we fight anti-Semitism not only to protect ourselves, and not only to protect the…
-
Opinion 5 Good News Stories From This Jewish Week That Are Just About Women
Take a deep breath in, exhale, and congratulate yourself on making it to Friday! Shabbat is almost here. Just in time, it’s International Women’s Day! This morning, thousands of Jewish women gathered in the holiest place for Jews in the world, Jerusalem’s Western Wall, to pray together in celebration of the 30th anniversary of Women…
-
Opinion Why Does Congress Care More About Jewish Feelings Than Palestinian Rights?
Late last month, in between the firestorm over Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s comments about AIPAC’s influence being “all about the Benjamins” and the firestorm over her comments about “allegiance to a foreign country,” the United Nations issued a report into Israel’s killing of 189 Palestinians — some of whom were journalists and health workers, and 35…
Columnists View All
The Latest
-
Opinion Can It Happen Here?
Can it happen here? It’s a question that Americans, and particularly Jewish-Americans, have asked over the decades when looking to Europe. We see the ocean that separates us as an impenetrable barrier that keeps the pathologies that may plague the old country far, far away from us. Yet, having spent some time last month meeting…
-
Opinion We Soviet Jews Lived Through State-Sponsored Anti-Zionism. We Know How It Is Weaponized.
It’s 1988. My Dad and my teenage self are in our tiny Zhiguli car, stuck at a railway crossing in my Siberian home town of Novosibirsk. The road is narrow, the pavement is full of potholes. As the traffic begins to move, our car stalls in front of a massive Kamaz truck coming in the…
-
Opinion On International Women’s Day, We Jews Must Work To Make Sure No One Burns.
We are coming up on the yahrzeit of a burnt offering. In 1911, a fire at the Triangle Waist Company factory took the lives of 123 young girls and women. Jewish and Italian immigrants, mostly ages 14 to 23 years old, worked in the factory producing women’s blouses called “shirtwaists.” The owners of the factory,…
-
Opinion I’m A Jewish Teenager. Anti-Semitism Has Infiltrated My Hometown.
The truth is, when I opened my Snapchat to an image of teenagers from a local high school throwing up a Hitler salute around a swastika made out of red-solo-cups, I wasn’t even surprised. See, it wasn’t the first time anti-Semitism infiltrated my community. Just weeks before, after my school’s soccer team beat a rival…
-
Opinion 2020 Democratic Hopefuls Didn’t Abandon Israel. They Abandoned Jews
The American left has entered a period of overcorrection on Israel. If for a while there was the impression that criticizing Israel would get you branded an anti-Semite, we have now officially entered the territory where saying anti-Semitic things will be sanctioned by the left as long as they relate, however circuitously, to Israel. Nothing…
-
Opinion The Jews Are Tired.
I’ve become convinced that the most important image of early twenty-first century Jewry is a screengrab from YouTube purportedly taken from an introductory Yiddish lesson. “The Jews are tired,” it says. And right now, just this very moment, we’re not just tired. We’re exhausted. It’s never easy being a Jew, but at this moment, stuck…
-
Opinion The Right Uses Anti-Semitism To Protect Israel. The Left Uses Israel As An Excuse For Anti-Semitism.
In what has now become a weekly ritual, Ilhan Omar is once again the center of attention for her ruminations on Israel and its supporters in the United States. Unlike previous incidents for which she apologized or retracted her comments, this time Omar appears to be standing by them, and also unlike previous incidents, this…
-
Opinion The Left Is Making Jews Choose: Our Progressive Values Or Ourselves
In the past three weeks, Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar attempted to discuss the U.S.-Israel relationship three times. And each time, her words descended into anti-Semitic tropes. “It’s all about the Benjamins!” She wrote in a now deleted tweet, misconstruing the Israel Lobby in a way that evoked the anti-Semitic trope of Jewish money controlling the…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
Sports First Puka Nacua, now Mookie Betts: Why do sports stars keep getting antisemitic around a Jewish streamer?
- 2
Fast Forward After MIT professor’s killing, Jewish influencers spread unverified antisemitism claim
- 3
Fast Forward Father and son suspects in Bondi Beach Hanukkah attack identified as Sajid and Naveed Akram by law enforcement
- 4
News Christians are displaying menorahs in their windows post-Bondi Beach attack. Why some Jews object
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Pennsylvania principal to be fired over antisemitic voicemail: ‘They control the banks’
-
News Jews mobilized for Darfur 20 years ago. As violence surges again, where are they now?
-
Culture Righteous gentiles in the Holocaust were no ‘ordinary thing’
-
Letters My childhood echoes in newly released Shoah recordings
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
