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
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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Opinion Intersectionality Has Abandoned Jews. Should We Abandon Intersectionality?
We have a race problem here in the U.S. Almost daily, we hear of cops being called on African Americans for taking a nap, waiting in a store, grilling in the park, buying shampoo, or playing golf too slowly. But the problem goes much deeper than unchecked racial bias. We tolerate a system that robs…
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Opinion Israel’s Choice To Shoot Palestinians Should Horrify — But Not Surprise Us
The other day, a thoughtful acquaintance, who is to my right politically, asked me a question. He asked what I’d advise Israel to do when faced with thousands of Palestinians, some likely bent on violence, who are trying to storm the fence that separates the Gaza Strip from the rest of Israel. (I say “rest…
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Opinion All We In Gaza Want Is That Israel Recognize Our Humanity
Today was a heartbreaking day for Gaza. While American and Israeli leaders celebrated a new American embassy in Jerusalem, protests along the Israel/Gaza border resulted in 55 Palestinian deaths. A number of them were children. Throughout the day, the numbers skyrocketed, from 16 to 40 in just one hour. Of those who survived, 2,000 were…
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Opinion Moving the Embassy To Jerusalem Makes Me Giddy – Until I Remember Who’s Doing It
Jerusalem. It has been the center of Jewish prayer, longing, and hope for over 2,000 years. It is where every generation of Jews has turned to, what all of our exiled people have dreamed of, and to where we finally returned as a free nation from the four corners of the world, battered but alive,…
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Opinion Is Israel Justified In Shooting Protestors On Gaza Border?
For the past six weeks, social media has been ablaze with the spectacle of thousands of Palestinians moving towards the border fence separating the Gaza Strip and Israel. Departing from six separate tent encampments built a few hundred meters from the border, the “Great Return March” has led to violent clashes, the loss of lives,…
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Opinion How Racism Marred The Jerusalem Embassy Celebration
For more than a century, Palestinians have tried to convince the world (wrongly, in my view) that Zionism is inherently racist. Now they have a powerful new ally: Donald Trump. Consider the bigots that Trump has assembled to celebrate the move of America’s embassy to Jerusalem. Among the Americans in attendance were Trump’s ambassador to…
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Opinion No, Jordan Peterson Is Not An Anti-Semite
Jordan Peterson and unlikely cult figure in the anti-“political correctness” counterculture on the Internet, has been the subject of much discussion lately—including harsh critiques accusing him of authoritarian tendencies. But probably none have generated as much controversy and backlash as the Forward piece by Ari Feldman with the incendiary title, “Is Jordan Peterson Fueling Jew…
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Opinion For Palestinians, The Nakba Is Not Just A Tragedy But A Triumph
In 1948 my mother was three years old and living in the middle-class Ajami neighborhood on Jaffa’s coast. In April, Hagana and Irgun forces began mortaring the city, pushing Palestinians further and further towards the sea. My mother and her family rushed on to their fishing trawler and sailed north, first to Beirut, then to…
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Antisemitism Decoded The great antisemitism rug pull
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Culture An Israeli genocide scholar looks to Israel’s history to understand ‘what went wrong’
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דעבאָראַ בראָדי, אַ לערערין פֿון קינדער מיט ספּעציעלע באַדערפֿענישן, האָט זיי געלאָזט אָנטאַפּן די זאַכן.
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Opinion The new face of Holocaust denial is harder to spot — and more dangerous