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
How My Daughter Helped Me Realize That Women Are More Than Just Victims
I will confess that when I found out I was pregnant almost exactly seven years ago, I prayed, in my furtive post-ultra-Orthodox-atheist way, that I wasn’t having a girl. Not because the happily-every-after-formula in all the stories I’d been told as a child was “and nine months later his wife gave birth to a healthy…
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Opinion No Single Organization Speaks For Jewish Millennials
A recent op-ed in these pages by Madi Norman, a member of IfNotNow Chicago, argued that young Jews feel unrepresented by what she calls “the Jewish establishment.” In focusing on combating the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement against Israel, Norman argues, institutions have failed to understand how young Jews think. The focus on BDS, writes…
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Opinion Want To Help Women Rabbis Get The Respect They Deserve? Here’s A List
Recently, my colleague, Rabbi Jordie Gerson, wrote an op-ed regarding the most common type of erasure that female clergy encounter: the omission of title and withholding of respect. It is a large-scale battle, but one that is fought in small moments. The article sparked a wide-ranging discussion among my colleagues in the Reform rabbinate. Many…
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Letters No, DC’s Museum Of The Bible Doesn’t Violate Separation Of Church And State
To the Editor: I have not yet visited the new Museum of the Bible in Washington, DC., and have no strong views about it one way or the other. But I am a scholar of religion and law, and I can say that Gordon Haber’s article about the museum in the January 2018 issue of…
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Opinion No, Cornel West Is Not An Anti-Semite
In 1966, the eminent Jewish theologian Michael Wyschogrod wrote an article called “The Jewish interest in Vietnam,” in which he argued that Jews should support American intervention in Vietnam. A Communist victory in Vietnam, he worried, would encourage Russian support of the Palestine Liberation Organization and thus threaten Israel. Several million Vietnamese dead later, Wyschogrod’s…
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Opinion I Am The Rabbi, Not His Assistant. We Must Fight The Erasure Of Female Clergy
A few weeks ago I got home from the URJ Biennial – a convention of 6000 Reform Jews from all over the world who come together to sing, prayand learn for five days. Among the attendees there were dozens of women Rabbis, and many more female Jewish professionals. All attendees wore name tags which gave…
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Opinion My New Year’s Resolution? No More Political Posts!
Every year, my resolutions revolve around the same issues: More flossing, less Diet Coke. More treadmill, less couch time. More filing, less piling. But for 2018, I’m jettisoning all the usual lofty goals and whittling down my resolutions to just one: No more political posts on social media. I did not come to this decision…
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Opinion Social Media Is Dangerously Undermining Our Democratic Values
Seven years ago, the internet felt like a vast new democratic space for borderless community building and for the exchange of political and intellectual ideas. For political and civil society activists, social media platforms became an invaluable tool for reporting and organizing. For dissidents in authoritarian regimes, it was an uncensored platform from which they…
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Opinion Israel Is Quietly Ridding Itself Of Thousands Of African Refugees
Over the past few weeks, the government of Israel has initiated a number of measures designed to bring an end to their African asylum seeker problem. The plight of tens of thousands of Africans, mostly Sudanese and Eritrean, who over the past decade have sought asylum in Israel after escaping dictatorship, war and genocide, is…
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Opinion I Am A Jew Of Color. I Think.
I am a Jew of color. I think. I’ve always been confused by this idea, of being “of color.” I’m Sephardic, but I grew up in a white town, and my parents grew up in an Ashkenazi area of Israel, so, culturally speaking, I always felt identified with some degree of whiteness. It was a…
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Opinion We Had A ‘P Is For Palestine’ Party For Kids, And The JDL Showed Up
On Sunday, I took my kids to the ‘P is for Palestine’ Hanukkah party on the Upper West Side. It took no convincing: all they needed to hear was “jelly donuts.” Little did they or I know that by the end of the party, the children would have come face to face with a group…
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