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
Ilhan Omar Can Fix This. Here’s How.
The dust is settling from a recent brouhaha surrounding problematic remarks by freshman Congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota about money from pro-Israel lobbyists and foreign “allegiances.” The comments earned Omar censure from her fellow House Democrats for evoking anti-Semitic clichés. Omar also had many critics on the right, who took her words as an opportunity…
-
Opinion Ilhan Omar’s Words Hurt. But We Can’t Let Our Pain Be Weaponized Against Her.
The first time the accusation of “Jewish money” hurt me, I was in ninth grade. I sat in the cafeteria as classmates — people I’d thought of as friends — taunted me by snarling the word “Jew,” and pelted me with pennies and nickels. After sitting through what felt like an eternity of this, the…
-
Opinion Our Obsession With The Holocaust Made Us Blind To American Anti-Semitism
The historian Pamela Nadell made a fascinating point in an opinion piece in last week’s Washington Post: By focusing on the Holocaust, she argues, Americans have overlooked centuries of anti-Semitism on our own shores. “This focus on the Holocaust gets Americans off the hook. Anti-Semitism is something that happened over there, in Europe — an…
Columnists View All
The Latest
-
Opinion You Know Who Wants Netanyahu To Win? Hamas.
On Tuesday, the Jerusalem Post revealed that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted Hamas’s use to him. He defended allowing Qatari funds to be transferred into Gaza as a crucial part of a broader strategy to keep Hamas and the Palestinian Authority apart, according to a source in Monday’s Likud faction meeting. Netanyahu also said…
-
Opinion How I Became My Father On Israel
His face turned beet red. In my 37-year relationship with my father, it was the only time I recall him getting very angry at me. What had I done? Criticized Israel publicly. My father, Victor, was a Holocaust survivor who lost his entire family to the Nazis, except his older brother. To him, Israel was…
-
Opinion Jewish Leaders Denounce ‘Dual Loyalties’ – While Demanding Fealty To Israel From Jews
Every time a Jewish leader grandstands against the anti-Semitic canard of “dual loyalty,” I groan. Not because this trope is not real. For all of Jewish history, anti-Semites have justified persecution by claiming Jews are more loyal to each other than their home countries. And recent anti-Semitic attacks, like the one at the Tree of…
-
Opinion The Democrats Are Making Me More Pro-Israel
This week, Bernie Sanders’ national deputy press secretary accused American Jews of dual loyalty. “This is a serious question: do you not think that the American government and American Jewish community has a dual allegiance to the state of Israel? I’m asking not to rule out the history of this issue, but in the context…
-
Opinion The Hypocrisy Of ‘Microaggressions’ On The Left – And The Right
Ilhan Omar has recently been in the spotlight for comments that played into long-standing anti-Semitic tropes. In tweets and at a town hall, Omar expressed her belief that support for Israel is only a reflection of Jewish wealth (“It’s all about the Benjamins, baby”. As Michelle Goldberg aptly put it at the New York Times,…
-
Opinion Who Gets To Define Anti-Semitism?
A couple of weeks ago, I attended a meeting on a local college campus for Students for Justice in Palestine. As it came out that I was both a Zionist but also sympathetic to the Palestinian plight, I received dozens of questions from students asking how I could hold these two “incompatible” ideas. I spent…
-
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…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
Fast Forward DNC finding: Biden’s Israel backing cost Harris votes for president
- 2
Antisemitism Decoded After Minneapolis, a YouTuber comes for Jewish ‘welfare queens’
- 3
News Reza Pahlavi, Iran’s exiled crown prince, has a plan for his people’s future — if they’ll have him
- 4
News What We Know About Jeffrey Epstein’s Childhood
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward At this Dallas synagogue, Purim comes with fog machines, zip lines and Broadway flair
-
Fast Forward Khamenei long obstructed peace for Israel. But his influence was waning before his assassination.
-
Yiddish World Yiddish startup brings together literature, listening parties and language circles in London
-
Culture How an Amish Mennonite school in Arkansas went viral with a song by an Orthodox Jew
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
