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
The One Thing American Jews Can Do To Help Israel
American Jews are worried about Israel and don’t know how to help. This is the conclusion I’ve drawn as an Israeli activist who’s been presenting for more than a decade at synagogues and fire-side chats in the American Jewish community. I usually talk about the challenges Israel’s democracy is facing: the growing polarization, the use…
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Opinion Being Gay Used To Be Terrifying. Being Jewish was Easy. Now It’s The Opposite.
“Jews aren’t a real minority,” a college classmate once said to me. Statistics say otherwise, but I knew what he meant. Jews are, of course, a minority in America. But for the last few decades, our comfort here hasn’t always made us feel marginalized. Until recently, anti-Semitism in America felt, by and large, like a…
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Opinion While The Left And Right Point Fingers, No One Is Fighting Anti-Semitism
It’s not easy being hated. With every Jewish holiday, we tell our kids the stories — of these people or those — who have tried to kill us all. But they lost! We’re still here! So we rejoice and eat but never, ever forget. But we do forget. It’s easy to forget. We live here,…
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Opinion Why Did Ilhan Omar’s Tweets Trigger More Outrage Than Synagogue Shootings?
This is not how I expected to be a rabbi. Yes, I expected that I would confront anti-Semitic graffiti — graffiti like the kind one of my students found spray-painted on a high school ball field, around the corner from our synagogue. But I didn’t expect to hold three healing services for synagogue murder victims…
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Opinion Only One Thing Can Stop White Supremacy: Solidarity Between Muslims And Jews
On Saturday, a man walked into Chabad of Poway, in California, with a rifle. He murdered one worshipper and injured three others. It was Shabbat. He waited until Jews were gathered to pray on their holiest day, a sabbath that Muslims share. Using their faith as a tool of containment, he began shooting. It was…
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Opinion Chabad Shooter Was Fueled By Hate. Our Response At Chabad Will Be Love.
Another act of horrific anti-Semitic barbarism, this time in the Chabad synagogue of Poway, CA on the last day of Passover, six months to the day following the Pittsburgh Tree of Life shooting. One life lost, three injured, including my colleague, Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, who was reported to have bravely continued leading his congregation even…
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Opinion Why Do Jews Have To Be Murdered For You To Admit Anti-Semitism Is Real?
For the second time this year, a white supremacist marched into a synagogue and shot it up. On the six-month anniversary of the deadly shooting in the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, a copycat inspired by that attack marched into the Chabad of Poway and opened fire. In the wake of the horrific attack,…
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Opinion Spare Me Your Thoughts And Prayers. The U.S. Has Betrayed Its Jews.
The United States Constitution, and the government sworn to uphold it, is not protecting its citizens. It did not protect Lori Gilbert Kaye, the 60-year-old woman with a kind smile and a generous disposition, who was murdered by an anti-Semitic terrorist as she prayed in synagogue yesterday, the final day of Passover. It did not…
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Opinion Synagogue Shootings Shattered Our Illusion. America Is No Safe Haven For Jews.
On Saturday, April 27, a few hours before the shooting at the Chabad in Poway, California, I walked from my hotel in Amsterdam—where my family has been on vacation—to a synagogue I found online. I arrived at a building with no external Jewish markings. The door was locked. When I tried to open it, a…
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Opinion The Poway Shooting Didn’t Just Target Jews
The Jewish community is once again in mourning. Another white supremacist shot up a Chabad synagogue in Poway, just six months after the most violent attack against Jews on U.S. soil in Pittsburgh. And yet, despite the fact that the shooting was a horrific act of anti-Semitism, it was not just the Jews who were…
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Opinion The Happiest News Of The Jewish Week: World Seders, Jewish Superheroes, Yiddish Rockstars
It’s like a normal Friday times seven (or eight) — Passover is almost over! Take a slug of wine, count your blessings and your Omer, and celebrate the happiest news stories this Jewish week. It’s spring, it’s the season of redemption, and Natalie Portman showed up at the “Avengers: Endgame” premiere — that, my friends,…
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News Jews paused Indiana’s abortion ban — by turning a religious freedom law against the evangelical right
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Culture In 1989, Harold Pinter and Jerry Schatzberg made the perfect Holocaust movie for 2026
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Opinion An abominable new Israeli law is a death warrant for democracy
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Culture Inside the ancient Christian theology driving modern antisemitism
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