In the Forward’s opinion section, you’ll find analysis and essays from diverse corners of the Jewish world.
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Opinion
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Opinion
Ashkenormativity? What about Israel-Centrism?
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. I first heard complaints about Ashkenormativity in March 2009, five or six years before the term was apparently coined. I was attending a conference in Chicago for young Yiddish speakers and college students interested in studying the language. While explaining how learning Yiddish as a teenager and…
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Letters Letter | I Invite All Jews To Join Me In Fighting BDS
Dear Editor, I am the New York attorney who was written up in the op-ed piece “The Surprising New Battleground” published on January 7, 2019. I am writing in response to that article. Do you know who Oliver Brown was? The name might not seem familiar to you, but in fact you probably know it…
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Opinion Can We Finally Admit That Jews Can Be Both White And Oppressed?
The discussion over whether or not European Jews are white is like the herpes of Jewish thought spaces. No one enjoys it. It makes your skin itch and crawl. And it keeps popping up out of nowhere. Although a number of Jews of color have written extensively on this issue, many Jewish people with the…
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Opinion ‘Dual Loyalty’? Nice Try. Republicans Are The Ones Using Israel As A Partisan Football
We’ve heard a lot about the anti-Semitic “dual loyalty” canard recently. The idea that Jews are more loyal to Israel and each other than they are to the country in which they live has been used to justify the mass murder of Jews since Pharaoh in the Bible. It’s something we’re sensitive about, and in…
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Opinion I Was Sexually Harassed On Bernie Sanders’ Campaign. And No One Cared.
The morning of the 2016 New York Democratic primary, a local voter named Ray came by Bernie Sanders’ South Bronx campaign headquarters where I was volunteering. He asked for a few T-shirts from the campaign. A few minutes later, in a back corner of the office where I had gone to fetch him the T-shirts,…
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Opinion Opinion | The Surprising New Battleground In the War Against Palestinian Rights: Your Local Courthouse
On November 26, 2018, a New York-based lawyer named David Abrams announced that he had filed a lawsuit against Airbnb over its decision to stop providing services in West Bank settlements. Abrams filed the lawsuit on behalf of a “Jewish-owned” Israeli corporation based in “Judea and Samaria” — more commonly known as the West Bank…
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Opinion Palestinians Are Right To Outlaw Selling Land To Settlers
I spent the summer of 2017 living in the heavily occupied West Bank city of Hebron. On July 24, I witnessed the takeover of a Palestinian property in the center of the old city by around 100 settlers. I watched as members of the Abu Rajab family, still living on one of the floors of…
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Opinion Nancy Pelosi Is The Anti-Ivanka
Nancy Pelosi just won a historic victory: She was sworn in for a second term as Speaker of the House. When she won for the first time, Pelosi became the first woman to hold the Speakership. And after leading the Democrats through a blue wave in the midterms, she’s proven her ability to lead. She’s…
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Opinion Birthright Will Fail If It Doesn’t Evolve With Young Jews
On New Year’s Day, a young woman rushed the stage at the “MegaEvent” held in Jerusalem for participants in Birthright, the program that takes young American and other Diaspora Jews to Israel on a free ten-day trip. BREAKING: Young Jew disrupts Birthright’s ‘MegaEvent’, a nationalist rally in Israel with all Birthright participants, holding a sign…
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Opinion Ilhan Omar Needs To Apologize For Her Anti-Semitic Tweet – Like I Did.
When I think about the election of Minnesota Democratic Rep.-elect Ilhan Omar, I have mixed feelings. On one hand, her election is a milestone: she is the first Somali-American Muslim woman elected to Congress and a strong supporter of Palestinian human rights in a Congress that often sees them as an afterthought. But on the…
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Opinion Bernie Sanders Isn’t Just Another White Male Candidate. His Nomination Would Be Historic.
The 2020 Democratic primary will likely offer the most diverse field of candidates either party has ever put forward for the presidency. At least four serious African-American contenders (Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, Andrew Gillum, and Eric Holder) have been floated so far, as have at least four women (Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand, Amy Klobuchar, and…
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Sports First Puka Nacua, now Mookie Betts: Why do sports stars keep getting antisemitic around a Jewish streamer?
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Fast Forward After MIT professor’s killing, Jewish influencers spread unverified antisemitism claim
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News Christians are displaying menorahs in their windows post-Bondi Beach attack. Why some Jews object
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Politics This politician refused to say ‘Happy Hanukkah,’ then blamed ‘political correctness’ for the backlash
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Fast Forward Just before Hanukkah attack, Jewish mayor of Bondi Beach region had been praised for fighting antisemitism
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Fast Forward Vance says ‘religious liberty is a Christian concept.’ Where does that leave Jews?
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Culture 26 conceivably believable pop culture predictions for 2026
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Culture A new organization aims to combat antisemitism and spread Jewish joy in New York’s theater industry
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