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
-
Letters
Sorry, Liberals: People Who Hate Israel Are Anti-Semites, Too
Jew-haters don’t care how Jews define anti-Semitism. The Nazis didn’t care if you were an Orthodox Jew or an assimilated Jew or anything in between. This would seem to be a powerful argument against defining anti-Semitism based on how you define your Jewish identity. Yet, in a recent op-ed, the Forward’s Opinion Editor Batya Ungar-Sargon…
-
Opinion Congress Shouldn’t Take the Anti-BDS Bill Bait
A major bill affecting American civil liberties and U.S. foreign policy towards Israel is being debated behind the scenes in Congress and may be attached in the dark of night to the end of year Omnibus spending package. This bill – S. 720, the Israel Anti-Boycott Act (IABA) – is fundamentally flawed at its core…
-
Opinion Alice Walker’s Conspiracy Theories Aren’t Just Anti-Semitic – They’re Anti-Black
Every generation that struggles against oppression stands on the shoulders of those who came before us. But even as we honor those who taught us, we must also challenge them when they stray from the path of fighting for justice, and fall into the trap of stigmatizing one community to uplift another. For Black feminists,…
Columnists View All
The Latest
-
Opinion Why Don’t Jews Realize How Dangerous Anti-BDS Laws Are?
The movement to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel, known as BDS, is in the news this week, thanks to a harrowing tale reported in The Intercept about a Muslim speech therapist in Austin, Texas named Bahia Amawi. Amawi was told she could no longer work in the Texas public school system unless she signed…
-
Opinion Is This How We Defend Israel — By Firing Teachers, Lawyers and Repair Men?
The Intercept today published an account of what happened to Bahia Amawi, a speech pathologist who has worked for the last nine years with developmentally disabled, autistic and speech-impaired elementary school students. Every year since 2009, Amawi has signed a contract with a school district that includes Austin, Texas to provide assessment and support for…
-
Opinion Did Jared Kushner Learn To Fail Up From Trump?
Last week, we learned that in 2016, Jared Kushner was appointed to be the new Michael Cohen. That’s when Trump made his son-in-law “the main conduit between Trump and his friend David Pecker, the National Enquirer publisher and chief executive of AMI, who prosecutors said on Wednesday admitted to making a $150,000 hush-money payment ‘in…
-
Opinion Why Louis Farrakhan Can No Longer Be Excused
Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam, is an unrepentant bigot. His hatred of, and disdain for, Jews, gay men and lesbians, trans people and white people in general is consistent and unwavering. It forms the basis of his prophecy and his politics, which he will shamelessly preach to anyone who will listen. Farrakhan…
-
Opinion It’s Not Just Jews. Let’s Remember The Other People Europeans Love To Hate
Some years ago, I was discussing the history of Jews in Poland with a Polish academic. He pointed out to me that while anti-Semitism has certain unique characteristics, in pre-war Poland it was part of a web of inter-ethnic conflicts that also included Ukrainians, Lithuanians, and Germans, to name a few. Timothy Snyder makes a…
-
Opinion American Jews And Israelis No Longer Agree On What Anti-Semitism Is
Last week, Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu shocked Jews worldwide when his office revealed it would be working with Hungary on a museum dedicated to Holocaust revisionism. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the museum will be curated by a woman whose magazine targeted the Hungarian Jewish community’s president, András Heisler, in an anti-Semitic…
-
Opinion How Did Ashkenazi Jews End Up With Famous Non-Jewish Last Names?
It’s a fact: Ashkenazi Jews often bear surnames also used by Christians. What, if anything, does that tell us? Surnames used by a population often contain clues about the historical, linguistic and cultural past of the group. Certain names reveal migration patterns, others provide clues about the occupations of the ancestors and some names provide…
-
Opinion TIME’s Honor Of Brave Journalists Shows What Happens When Our Leaders Embrace Despots
As a journalist, especially as a Jewish journalist, I was gratified that TIME magazine chose to honor the members of our profession who have displayed extraordinary courage, even at the cost of their own lives, simply to do their jobs. “The Guardians” is how editor Ed Felsenthal described the group of journalists, alive and dead,…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
Opinion Marco Rubio invoked a medieval antisemitic trope in justifying war with Iran
- 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
Culture How an Amish Mennonite school in Arkansas went viral with a song by an Orthodox Jew
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward House defeats Iran war powers resolution as Democrats wrestle with Israel
-
Yiddish פֿאָרווערטס פּאָדקאַסט, קאַפּיטל 8: די אונטערבאַןForverts podcast, episode 8: Subway stories
אין דעם קאַפּיטל וועט איר הערן וועגן דעם ערשטן מאָל וואָס משהלע אַלפֿאָנסאָ האָט געטראָגן אַ יאַרמלקע אויף דער באַן.
-
Opinion Gavin Newsom just confirmed the demise of the Democratic party’s support for Israel
-
Yiddish ווי אַ כּלי־זמר־פּאַראַד איז געוואָרן טייל פֿונעם קאַרנאַװאַל אין סאַאָ פּאַולאָHow a klezmer parade became part of the annual carnival in Sao Paulo
הײַיאָר האָט מען אָפּגעגעבן כּבֿוד די ייִדישע פּאַרשױנען פֿונעם פֿאָלקלאָר פֿון דער אָרטיקער קהילה.
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
