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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Letters
Zionism Is Nothing Like White Supremacy, No Matter What Richard Spencer Says
Days after the horrific showcase of American far-right extremism in Charlottesville, America’s leading extremist, white supremacist leader Richard Spencer, appeared on an Israeli television newscast and compared his hate-filled ideology to Jewish nationalism, declaring it “white Zionism.” Riding the waves of extremism and hate, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) staffer Naomi Dann asserted in The…
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Opinion 5 Reasons Richard Spencer Is Wrong About Israel
A few days ago, one of the white supremacist leaders of the Charlottesville, Virginia “Unite the Right” rally, Richard Spencer, was invited onto Israeli TV. He compared his own nationalist platform to Israel. “As an Israeli citizen, someone who understands your identity, who has a sense of nationhood and peoplehood and history and experience of…
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Opinion Who Did and Didn’t Sign Congress’s Jewish Rebuke of Trump? Why on Elvis’s Yahrzeit?
Eighteen of the 22 Jewish members of the House of Representatives signed a letter to the president, released on Thursday, decrying his obtuse and outrageous comments following the Charlottesville violence and urging him “to stand with us on the right side of history.” It was initiated by Rep. Sander Levin of Michigan, who is the…
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Opinion Richard Spencer Might Be The Worst Person In America. But He Might Also Be Right About Israel
The images of Nazis and white supremacists marching in the streets of Charlottesville with torches chanting “blood and soil” shook me to my core. But so did something else that happened this week. In the aftermath of these acts of blatant racism and anti-Semitism, one of the march’s leaders, Richard Spencer, was invited onto Israeli…
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Opinion When Silence on Evil Is Evil: A GOP Leader Speaks
The most powerful statement I have heard so far on Trump’s Charlottesville Nazi fiasco came from Republican consultant Steve Schmidt, the senior strategist on John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, during an MSNBC panel discussion on Wednesday evening, August 16. It should be noted that he’s a regular commentator on MSNBC and frequently on “Real Time…
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Opinion Will Jewish Megadonors Keep Enabling Trump After Charlottesville?
It’s bad enough for an American President to defend Nazis. It’s worse when Republican lawmakers – and American Jews – continue to support that President. I’m not talking about getting people to use stronger words of condemnation; I’m talking about deeds. And I’m not talking about nameless Trump supporters. It pains me to say it,…
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Opinion This Jewish Group Has Failed to Condemn Trump’s Defense of Nazis
Our nation is reeling in the wake of President Trump’s astonishing, disgraceful comments on the events in Charlottesville on Tuesday. In his press conference, the President drew a false equivalence between white supremacists and those who protested them. In his now famous remarks, the President referred to some of the white supremacist marchers as “very…
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Opinion Trump Isn’t The Only One Lying About What Happened In Charlottesville
After alt-right demonstrations in Charlottesville turned into clashes led by Antifa, leading to an alt-right Nazi sympathizer driving a car into a group of counter-protesters, things were bad enough. As always, both sides of the political aisle have determined to make an awful situation worse. The big problem is that both Left and right now…
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Opinion The March For Racial Justice Just Welcomed Jews Back Into The Left
Like many of us, I haven’t felt good about something I’ve read on my Facebook feed in many, many, many months. But today I was deeply moved by the kind of gesture that I thought had disappeared from the public sphere. It came as a response to some upsetting scheduling news. Earlier this week, it…
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Opinion What Growing Up Under Apartheid Taught Me About Trump’s ‘Fine People’
When I heard Donald Trump say in his Tuesday press conference that there were “fine people” among the marchers in Charlottesville, Virginia, who protested the removal of a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee, it brought me back. I spent much of my childhood in the company of South African Jews. It was the…
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Opinion My Fellow Orthodox Jews: Admit You Were Wrong About Trump
For two years, I have been grappling with how to relate to those of my fellow Orthodox Jews who, for reasons utterly mystifying to me, cannot see Donald Trump for what he is. I first tried logic, I tried appeals to truth, then justice, then facts, then emotion. That last one was particularly painful. It…
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