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
Israel Just Recognized Itself As A Jewish State. Stop Asking Palestinians To.
Last week, the Israeli Knesset passed the Nation-State Bill ratifying Israel’s Jewish character. The passage of a constitutional provision defining Israel as a Jewish state is clearly of immediate and substantial significance for the state’s Arab citizens. But Israel makes its Jewishness a central component of its negotiations with Fatah and Hamas, too, holding recognition…
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Opinion Rabbi Jonathan Sacks Has Abdicated His Moral Responsibility
I’ve never met Jonathan Sacks. But his writing has had a deeper impact on my life than any other rabbi’s. I first came across it in a London synagogue in November 2010. Stapled together was Sacks’s commentary on the week’s Torah portion, Parshat Vayetzei, in which Jacob — after tricking his brother and father —…
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Opinion My Personal and Professional Reckoning With Steven Cohen’s #MeToo Moment
The news that the respected sociologist Steven M. Cohen had repeatedly sexually harassed numerous women in his field left me completely stunned. A professional colleague and personal friend for nearly a decade, he never struck me as the sort to take advantage of his gender or his stature, ever. But the preponderance of evidence in…
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Letters Jewish Continuity Isn’t Sexist — It’s Necessary
Is Jewish continuity inherently sexist? In some people’s minds, like the author of a recent op-ed in these pages, Jewish continuity is toxically identified with Jewish sociologist Steven M. Cohen. I’m neither judge nor jury, but if the #MeToo allegations against Cohen are true, and they may well be, the prominent sociologist should be held…
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Opinion Israeli Democracy Is Just Fine
It’s over: Israel has picked “identity over democracy.” That’s both the premise and conclusion of a recent piece by The New York Times columnist Max Fisher, who sees in the lamentable “Nation-State” law passed last week by the Knesset a rejection of democracy, and an embrace of theocracy and ethnocracy. Fisher writes that Israel has…
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Opinion A Matter Of Conscience: Why I Support The Sanctuary Movement
In the early days of the Trump administration, I wrote an essay expressing serious reservations about the modest but growing movement by churches and synagogues to offer aid and housing to undocumented immigrants. Since then, America has changed, and so have I. My initial unease was not because of what “sanctuary” tries to do, I…
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Opinion Israel’s Democracy Is On Life Support. Diaspora Jews Must Speak Up.
It is time for the Jewish Diaspora to update some of its favorite lines for advocating on behalf of Israel. For example, “Arabic is one of Israel’s two official languages” is now a factually incorrect statement after Israel’s new Nation-State bill was passed by the Knesset last week. The bill downgraded Arabic from an official…
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Opinion Why Do Israelis Care So Much About Syrians But Not About Palestinians?
On Saturday night, the Israeli Defense Forces released footage of a rescue operation, in which over 400 humanitarian aid workers in Syria, known as White Helmets, were evacuated by Israel along with their families and ferried through the Golan Heights to safety in Jordan. It’s not the first time Israel has engaged in humanitarian efforts…
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Opinion Israel’s New Nation-State Law, and Other Disruptions To The Old Order
Welcome back to Jane Looking Forward. If you wish to continue reading this weekly newsletter, please subscribe here. And spread the word! What a week to be away! President Trump’s disastrous press conference after his meeting with the ruthless Russian President Vladimir Putin left even Republican leaders dismayed — or, as John McCain, his party’s…
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Opinion A Letter To Southern Israelis, From Your Neighbor In Gaza
To Gaza’s Neighbors in southern Israel: Over the last month, you’ve had some of the most sleepless and terrible nights in years, and so have your Palestinian sisters and brothers in Gaza. Shabbat after Shabbat, you had only 15 seconds to shelter your loved ones; meanwhile, many Gazans had no time to escape, nowhere to…
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Letters No, ‘Protest Tourism’ Is Not A Thing
As a young-ish British Jewish anti-occupation activist, I’m sadly all too familiar with straw-man attacks. I and others like me are so viciously attacked online following any meagre expression of opinion that if you were to believe even just half of the things written about us on the internet, you may be excused for thinking…
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