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.
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
A powerful split-screen image greeted those following President Trump’s visit to Pittsburgh yesterday in the wake of a horrific massacre that left 11 Jews dead. As the President’s SUV pulled up to the Tree of Life synagogue where the massacre took place, thousands marched through the neighborhood, chanting Jewish prayers about love and kindness and…
Pittsburgh’s Jews are a proud people. Squirrel Hill is the center of our physical and spiritual world. We are the living, breathing example of what it means to be an American Jew today: integrated Americans exhibiting outward Jewish pride. So when a domestic terrorist shot up my parent’s synagogue, he did so knowing full well…
The following is a joint editorial drafted by Jane Eisner, Editor-in-Chief of The Forward, and Dovid Efune, Editor-in-Chief and CEO of The Algemeiner, and signed by a dozen leaders in American Jewish journalism. Earlier this year, our colleagues at the three leading Jewish newspapers in the U.K. published the same front-page headline and joint editorial…
Before he attacked the Tree of Life synagogue this Saturday, the alleged Pittsburgh gunman Robert Bowers posted a message on social media. “HIAS [Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society] likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered,” he wrote. “Screw your optics, I’m going in.” He…
Something you hear a lot from the right when you bring up the President’s penchant for inflammatory language that ignites neo-Nazis is that the president can’t possibly be anti-Semitic because he has a Jewish daughter. It’s a line we have heard uttered by almost every member of the Trump administration at one time or another,…
After Pittsburgh, with 11 Jews dead, the recriminations began swiftly. The moment should have been about community and togetherness. Instead it became about finding someone to blame for anti-Semitism. The finger was pointed at President Donald Trump. The progressive group Bend the Arc issued a statement telling Trump he’s “not welcome in Pittsburgh.” The story…
In the wake of the massacre that led 11 dead in a synagogue in Pittsburgh, Trump is making his way there despite 26,000 Jews who signed a petition that he stay away. He’s not the only unwelcome politician to use the tragedy for a photo-op. The State of Israel sent Education and Diaspora Minister Naftali…
The terrorist attack that killed 11 Jews in Sabbath prayer on October 27 was the worst act of anti-Semitism in America, ever. But it was hardly the first time Jews have been targeted for injury and death within the shores of a nation that is supposed to offer us refuge and acceptance. While violent anti-Semitism…
On Saturday, a man entered a synagogue in Pittsburgh and murdered 11 Jews. It was a horrific, heinous crime. Sadly, rather than bringing Jews closer together, it seems to be only dividing us apart. In the past, after terror attacks in Israel, I have looked at my Instagram feed just after a terror attack in…
In the aftermath of the terrorist attack at the Tree of Life shul in Pittsburgh last Shabbat, many Israelis weighed in with messages for American Jews. The responses to the attack ranged from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s sympathetic condolences to Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi David Lau’s patronizing insults. But Zionist Union chief Avi Gabbay’s contribution –…
In the wake of the horrific massacre of 11 Jews at prayer this Shabbat, I have found myself wondering what it means to be a Jew in the age of Trump. It was a question that preoccupied me on the day he won the presidential election in 2016, on the strength of a campaign that…
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