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
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Opinion
My Father Committed Suicide Just Before Yom Kippur. It Taught Me To Choose Life.
In the weeks after my father’s suicide, life was mostly a blur. Time stood still, but at the same time, it raced by. I often found myself not knowing where I was or what I was doing. I would suddenly have no idea where I was, and have to trace back my steps until I…
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Opinion If You Can’t Mourn Ari Fuld, You Are An Accomplice In His Murder
Ari Fuld was a friend. We had met a couple of times face to face, shared a coffee or two, but he was omnipresent on my Facebook feed. We will meet no more. 17-year-old Khalil Yusef Ali Jabarin, from a West Bank village near Hebron, stabbed Ari in the back, and Ari succumbed to his…
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Opinion Family Is A Jewish Value. Don’t Let The Mistakes Of A Few Rob Us Of That Gift.
I am trying to figure out when fertility became the enemy of feminism. When caring about children and family became a misogynist act. When supporting the institution of marriage as the foundation of a healthy and stable society suddenly became an anti-woman sentiment. Because that’s what I’m hearing in the mistaken attempts to link a…
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Opinion Soon I Will Watch Israel Destroy My Home
As I write these words, I await Israel’s destruction of the only home and community that I have known in my 52 years of life. The 180 residents of my West Bank village, Khan al-Ahmar — men, women and children — will soon be forcibly removed from our land in order to expand Israel’s illegal…
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Opinion Want To Support Israel But Upset About Its Policies? Support Liberal Israelis
We’re liberals, we’re Zionists, and we have some concerns about Israel. By now, this is a familiar script whose next passage can be predicted. But this is not that story. Our Zionism is one borne from the hard truths of our family’s respective histories. For Ari, it’s one where Israel served as a refuge for…
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Opinion What Julia Salazar’s Win Means About Our Changing Tribe
Despite a flurry of negative press over the summer questioning some of her biographical claims, exposing a lawsuit and arrest, and forcibly outing her as a sexual assault survivor, Julia Salazar will now be representing New York’s 18th district in Albany. The 27-year-old first time candidate and socialist handily won a seat in the state…
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Opinion 25 Years After Oslo, Palestinians Don’t Trust Hamas — Or The PA
Earlier this month, senior Hamas leader and member of Parliament Atef Odwan posted a poll on Facebook that consisted of a single yes-or-no question: “Would you re-elect [PA President Mahmoud Abbas]?” The results were more or less predetermined, since Odwan’s page is frequented mainly by Hamas supporters, and because Abbas is perhaps the most frowned…
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Opinion How Jewish Geography Excludes Jews of Color
This is the story of how a game taught a young, Black Jewish girl that she didn’t belong. The game is Jewish Geography. The young girl is me. Urban Dictionary defines the diasporic pastime of “Jewish Geography” as what happens when “two or more Jews get together and discuss who knows whose Jewish friends and…
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Opinion Michael Steinhardt’s #MeToo Scandal Is All About Jewish Continuity
Stay tuned for an alternative take on this topic from Forward Editor-in-Chief Jane Eisner. On Wednesday night, the New York Jewish Week published an article outlining accusations of sexual misbehavior against Jewish billionaire and Taglit-Birthright Israel founder Michael Steinhardt. Some of the accusations are classics of the sexual harassment genre. For example, a lawsuit accused…
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Letters Israel Doesn’t Need More Or Less Religion — It Needs More Jewish Culture
Dear Editor, I have followed with interest the debate in these pages over recent weeks between the secular Einat Wilf and Ram Vromen and the Reform Rabbi Gilad Kariv over the proper place for Reform and Conservative Judaism in Israeli society. While each of the authors make several valid points, they all have several blind…
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Opinion The Media Shaming Of Julia Salazar
Julia Salazar is probably the most talked-about candidate for state Senate in recent New York history. But how the 27-year-old, first-time, socialist candidate, whose North Brooklyn district goes to the polls Thursday, became a household name, is a sorry tale of a media frenzy that has completely eclipsed the office she’s seeking. Some of it…
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