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
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…
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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…
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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,…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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,…
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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…
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