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.
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
The news from Turkey, arguably the most modernized of all Muslim nations, has been depressing lately. The country has suffered a string of terrorist attacks, and a bloody coup attempt in July 2016. Meanwhile, Turkey’s democratic credentials have declined dramatically. According to the nongovernmental organization Freedom House, in terms of press freedom the country entered…
DC’s latest summer superhero blockbuster, “Wonder Woman,” has been widely hailed as a feminist victory, garnering critical acclaim and already raking in over $550 million globally. But alongside its success as a woman-directed feature with a focus on women’s empowerment, the film has sparked controversy after being banned in Lebanon because of leading actress Gal…
(JTA) The Trump administration’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement has demanded that we all ask ourselves where we stand on questions of climate change, global warming and our collective responsibility for the planet we call home. That the earth has been warming in recent years is indisputable. At issue are the causes…
The Forward regularly monitors the surge of anti-Semitism across the country and around the world. The mission of this column is not to unduly alarm, but rather to raise awareness of a disturbing trend that, from some vantage points, can prove difficult to spot. During the British elections, a man was arrested for harassing a…
I was in Washington D.C. yesterday, at a board meeting of a small non-profit which I chair. One of my colleagues was as present as he could be under the circumstances — he was close to one of the people who was shot a few miles away at the Republican congressional baseball practice in Alexandria,…
(Reuters) President Donald Trump’s attempt to bring peace and stability to the Middle East has backfired spectacularly. He has put a major U.S. ally, Qatar, in a serious geopolitical crisis and damaged the efforts of his own cabinet to calm regional tensions. Trump’s recent trip to the region was intended to bring together likeminded Arab…
The early morning shooting of majority whip Rep. Steve Scalise and at least four others during a practice session of the GOP congressional baseball team has shaken both sides of the political spectrum. Fox News reports that alleged shooter James T. Hodgkinson asked Rep. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla, whether Republicans or Democrats had been practicing just…
A plastic curtain separated my father from his neighbor in the geriatric emergency room. The man, who wore a velvet yarmulke and sported a beard, lay on a gurney. His wife talked on the phone in Yiddish. Then she began speaking to me: “We came here last night from a wedding, our grandson.” I said…
One afternoon late in the summer of 1956, I spoke my first words. “Down water,” I told my parents, and that terse announcement meant that I wanted to toddle along the path from our rented summer cabin in upstate New York to the glistening shoreline of Lake George. I know of those words and that…
A new code of ethics commissioned by Israeli education minister Naftali Bennett, considered a rival of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, would bar Israeli universities from discussing politics in the classroom. Meant to protect students from political coercion, the code offers disciplinary action against lecturers or professors who express political views while teaching. The only exception…
In her article “A Wedding Invitation Like No Other,” Jane Eisner describes “intermarriage” as the “oozing story” among Conservative Jews, a story “found just below the surface.” I am one of the rabbis she describes as “not so quietly defying the restriction against officiating” at a marriage ceremony involving a Jewish person and a non-Jew….
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