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
Violent Anti-Semitism Is Gripping Ukraine — And The Government Is Standing Idly By
A wave of anti-Semitism has swept over Ukraine. In the past three weeks alone, a far-right leader publicly called for cleansing Ukraine of zhidi (a slur equivalent to “kike”); a Holocaust memorial in Ternopil was bombed; hundreds marched through Lviv, in honor of an SS unit, complete with Nazi salutes; “Death to Zhidi” graffiti was…
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Letters Deborah Lipstadt On Her Comments About Jordan Peterson
To the Forward: Last week Ari Feldman interviewed me for “Is Jordan Peterson Enabling Jew Hatred?” When Feldman contacted me, I explicitly told him that I had never read Peterson’s work and knew very little about him. Throughout the interview, I repeated that point and refused to offer any assessment of the work itself because…
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Opinion What’s Next After Bloodshed In Gaza?
You can find some of our other opinions about the conflict in Gaza here and here. Sixty Palestinians in Gaza were killed by Israel in one day this week, along with over 2,400 injured. As each day passes, the public justifications for their deaths have grown louder and louder: that the killed were members of…
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Opinion These Days, We Jews Have To Call Each Other Out – Because No One Else Will
Nearly forty-one years ago, a letter sorter for the U.S. Postal Service was arrested. He’d shot and killed six people, and wounded nine others in New York City. Among those upset by the arrest in 1977 were Jews, because the perpetrator was one of their own. His name was David Berkowitz, or as he signed…
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Opinion The Racism Of Blaming Palestinians For Their Own Deaths
On May 14, Israeli soldiers shot and killed 60 Palestinians and wounded over 2,500 while they were demonstrating inside Gaza. That fact is not in dispute. But according to Matti Friedman, a Canadian-Israeli author who lives in Jerusalem, neither the snipers who chose their targets and pulled the triggers nor the officers who ordered them…
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Opinion Why We Still Need Intersectionality
Intersectionality is fundamentally broken. It has failed Jews — not by accident, by design — and should be abandoned as a model for achieving equality. So argues Batya Ungar-Sargon in her recent opinion piece, “Intersectionality Has Abandoned Jews. Should Jews Abandon Intersectionality?” in The Forward. The latter point, I will concede. Those using intersectionality as…
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Opinion Memo To The World: Israel And Hamas Are Both To Blame For Carnage In Gaza
Last Monday, Israel’s security forces faced off against 40,000 angry Gazans. Some were armed. All were incited by Hamas to tear down the fence separating Gaza from Israel and implement en masse the sacred principle of “return.” And though the majority kept their distance, time and again groups of young men would approach the fence,…
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Opinion Why On Earth Is Ivanka Being Blamed For Bloodshed In Gaza?
The day after the dedication of the embassy in Jerusalem, the cover of the New York Daily News featured a front page photo of Ivanka Trump with the caption “Daddy’s Little Ghoul: 55 slaughtered in Gaza, but Ivanka all smiles at embassy unveil.” The headline implied two things: first, that she was responsible for the…
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Opinion Guess What? Israel Doesn’t Care What American Jews Think.
This past week, the Trump administration inaugurated one of its signature foreign policy accomplishments: the official relocation of the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. It was a striking moment, with the celebration coinciding with the killing of scores of protestors in Gaza. The embassy move and the withdrawal from the Iran Deal were…
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Opinion Trump Has Freed Progressive Democratic Senators To Finally Criticize Israel
The Forward has learned that on Friday night, thirteen Democratic Senators—including Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren—sent a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urging the Trump administration “to do more to alleviate the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.” That may not sound particularly audacious. But according to J Street’s Vice President of…
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Opinion The Gaza Protest Is About Ending Israel
In the past few days, we have come closer than we have in some time to touching the core issues that drive the conflict between Israelis, Palestinians, and the wider Arab and Islamic world. After decades of discussing “territories,” “borders,” “settlements,” “two states” and “occupation,” and lamenting the lack of trust between the sides and…
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