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
Could Merging Hebrew And Arabic Alphabets Help Bring Peace To Middle East?
TEL AVIV (JTA) — Middle East peace may remain out of reach, but at least the Hebrew and Arabic languages have found a compromise. Israeli typography designer Liron Lavi Turkenich has created a stylized writing system that merges the two ancient alphabets, allowing Hebrew and Arabic speakers to read the same words. Her hope is…
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Opinion How Jared Kushner Tramples The Torah
As we enter the festival that has come to mean standing again, each year, at Sinai. What does it mean for us to do this seriously, taking Torah deep into our lives, challenging ourselves to live by its deepest teachings? What would it mean to bring Torah to bear within or upon one rich, powerful…
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Opinion Can The Saudis Broker A Lasting Peace In The Middle East?
“We will move the American embassy to the eternal capital of the Jewish people, Jerusalem,” presidential candidate Donald Trump promised at the AIPAC conference in March, 2016, and he was rewarded with standing ovation. After being elected president, though, he became ambivalent and evasive about the policy change. During his recent visit to Israel, where…
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Opinion Why Holocaust Humor Is Now Serious Business
For more than 25 years, we had been trying to make a feature documentary titled “The Last Laugh,” which asks whether there is any place at all for humor in approaching the horrific topic of the Holocaust. The idea began with a 1990 visit to Miami’s Holocaust Memorial, then newly opened, where a friend of…
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Opinion BDS Debates On Campus Actually Benefit Jews
The Israeli government has declared the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction (BDS) movement as one of the biggest threats facing Israel today. Many in the American Jewish community have worried about the anti-Semitism and delegitimization of Israel the BDS debates on college campuses invoke. For the last years, I, along with a group of researchers, have…
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Opinion Does Ernest Hemingway Get A Pass For His Anti-Semitism?
Unquestionably, Ernest Hemingway was anti-Semitic. Studded throughout his letters are nasty remarks about Jews. But Hemingway felt his prejudice had a place in his fiction as well, most notably in “The Sun Also Rises,” his classic 1925 novel about a group of Paris expatriates at the bullfights in Pamplona. Hemingway routinely describes Robert Cohn, introduced…
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Opinion Why Israel Should Embrace This ‘Palestinian Gandhi’ — Not Jail Him
President Trump’s recent trip to Israel did not matter. He wants to broker the “ultimate deal” — Israeli-Palestinian peace — and thinks the Saudis, who share Israel’s fear of Iran, can help. But the Saudis can’t make Palestinians endorse their own subjugation. Peace requires freedom for the millions currently living under Israeli control without citizenship,…
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Opinion The Jewish Case Against Trump’s Budget From Hell
President Trump recently released his full budget proposal, which he titled “The Foundation for American Greatness.” It is an understatement to say that this budget comes nowhere close to living up to its grandiose title. In truth, it presents a dark vision for America, one at odds with all this country has stood for since…
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Opinion Could Judy Seigel Be The Next Posthumous Photo Phenom?
Before my mother died, I didn’t think about her aesthetic vision, though I always loved her fantastical photographs (1980s–2000s) and large abstract paintings (1970s) that filled our family’s brownstone in Manhattan’s West Village. But at her funeral, Rabbi David Adelson, dean of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and a family friend, delivered a eulogy…
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Opinion France’s President Macron Is A Friend Of Israel
As leaders of an organization deeply involved in pro-Israel advocacy in France and other key European countries, we are writing to report that the people of France have elected a potentially strong friend of Israel, Emmanuel Macron, as president. When Macron, then France’s Minister for the Economy, made his highly successful official visit to Israel…
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Opinion Peace In Israel Starts With An Apology
Imagine you have an old beater – say, a 1967 Chevy – that hasn’t really run in years. The tires are flat, it’s riddled with dents, seats are torn out, windshield’s cracked, the fuel gauge constantly malfunctions, and someone just stole your spark plugs and battery. Yet, for reasons you can no longer remember, you’re…
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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 Father and son suspects in Bondi Beach Hanukkah attack identified as Sajid and Naveed Akram by law enforcement
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