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
Actually, Blaming The Jews Is Bad, And So Is Putin For Doing It
Blaming the Jews is an old-school rhetorical move. It’s also, dispiritingly often, quite effective. You can see it in American far-righters blaming George Soros for financing their political opponents; in Steve Bannon’s menacing rhetoric about the influence of “globalists;” and, yes, in Louis Farrakhan’s screeds about Jews controlling the FBI. The notion of the Jew…
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Opinion What Black People Hear When You Demand That They Denounce Louis Farrakhan
Over the past couple of weeks, a familiar character has been haunting Twitter: Louis Farrakhan, leader of Nation of Islam. A few weeks ago, Farrkhan gave his annual Savior’s Day Address, which was laden with the anti-Semitic comments he is known for. The “powerful Jews are my enemy,” he said, “responsible for all of this…
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Opinion Alan Dershowitz: My Take On Al Jazeera’s Israel Lobby Documentary
Clayton Swisher has produced a film for Al Jazeera that used a Jewish undercover journalist pretending to be a Zionist to infiltrate and report on pro-Israel organizations. Now, in an op ed in these pages, Swisher is trying to use me to provide a “qualified seal of approval” for the unfairly one-sided video. But he…
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Opinion No, Putin Is Not An Anti-Semite
In an interview with NBC’s Megyn Kelly in Moscow that aired on March 9, Russian President Vladimir Putin was asked about the 13 Russian nationals indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller for interfering in the 2016 U.S. presidential election with a covert social media campaign. Through a translator, Putin responded: “Maybe they’re not even Russians….
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Opinion Why People Who Oppose BDS Should Oppose Anti-BDS Laws, Too
When UC-Berkeley Lecturer Hatem Bazian was invited to speak at Arizona State University by a group of Muslim students, he found something unexpected in his contract: a clause requiring him to certify he wouldn’t boycott Israel. Bazian was previously best known (depending on who you ask) either for being the founder of Students for Justice…
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Opinion It’s Time To Put To Rest The Myth That Palestinian Mothers Don’t Love Their Children
Many years ago, I spoke at a Reform synagogue in Chicago about the Palestinian experience. It was the height of the Second Intifada, and during the Question and Answer session, a woman asked me with a concerned look, “Why don’t Palestinian mothers love their children?” Confused, I was sure I had misheard the question. “I’m…
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Opinion Do Not Stand Idly By: The Holocaust Lesson Poland Hasn’t Yet Learned
Only a few years ago it seemed that the fraught narrative of Poland and its Jews was evolving from uneasy suspicion to tentative embrace. The 2014 opening of the core exhibition of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews, in Warsaw, was the joyful epitome of this developing story; lauded by politicians and celebrated…
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Opinion I Called Out Orthodox Racists. It’s Time For The Women’s March To Call Out Theirs.
The first time I heard the N-word spoken aloud, I was an adult in an Orthodox yeshiva. I was shocked. Before I enrolled in yeshiva as an adult, I had never heard the word except when reminded not to say it or in a movie. I had grown up my whole life in liberal Jewish…
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Opinion How The Battle Over Al Jazeera Coopted America’s Jews
Some surprising news emerged on the heels of the annual shebang of America’s largest Israel lobbying group. On the final day of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s policy conference, news broke that an undercover Al Jazeera documentary — about the very topic of Jewish advocacy for Israel — might lead to espionage charges against…
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Opinion We Made A Documentary Exposing The ‘Israel Lobby.’ Why Hasn’t It Run?
You never know who you’re going to spot at the Doha Four Seasons in Qatar. So I was only somewhat surprised when I found myself standing next to Harvard law Professor Alan Dershowitz in the omelet line last Saturday. It was a fortuitous meeting. Dershowitz had recently played a small role in an episode that…
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Letters No, Peter Freuchen Wasn’t Jewish
Dear Editor; Putting aside the age-old question as to who is a Jew, it is unlikely that Arctic explorer and adventurer Peter Freuchen was Jewish (See February’s “Who Knew” column). It may be adventurous to explore the possible Jewish background of the towering, red-bearded Dane, but without anything more substantive than apocryphal anecdotes such as…
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Fast Forward Unarmed man who tackled Bondi Beach Hanukkah attacker identified as Ahmed al-Ahmed
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Fast Forward After MIT professor’s killing, Jewish influencers spread unverified antisemitism claim
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Opinion I grew up believing Australia was the best place to be Jewish. This Hanukkah shooting forces a reckoning I do not want.
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