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
When The Rules Of Shabbos Clash With The Modern World
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…
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Opinion Hand-Me-Downs: The Lasting Power Of A Father’s Sweatshirt
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…
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Opinion Code Of Ethics Sparks Debate On Politics In Israeli Classrooms
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…
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Opinion How Interfaith Weddings Got This Rabbi Kicked Out Of The Conservative Movement
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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Opinion Fault Lines Season 1, Episode 10
Fault Lines Episode 10: Israel and the Conflict Listen to Peter Beinart and Daniel Gordis parse the Israeli conflict. The issues are vast and the opinions fly over the course of this conversation. Learn about the historic issues that plague the region. Can this conflict ever be resolved? Is it possible for President Donald Trump…
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Opinion Has Jeremy Corbyn Hit His Ceiling?
This time last year, Britain’s Labour Party was having another leadership contest and they held a town hall in London for Jewish voters. There, Jeremy Corbyn affirmed Israel’s right to exist but then dodged questions about anti-Semitism within the party. His opponent, Owen Smith, criticized him for “downplaying and ignoring” specific cases of anti-Jewish hatred….
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Opinion The Problem With Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie’s Intermarriage Proposal
In his recent proposal to marry Jews and non-Jews under certain circumstances, Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie explores a phenomenon of modern life in which non-Jews are inspired to participate in very positive ways in the life of the Jewish community out of their love of the Jews in their families. There is broad agreement that these…
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Opinion Wonder Woman’s ‘Whiteness’ Should Make Liberals Rethink Privilege
‘Are Jews white?” is, no doubt, the strangest controversy spawned by “Wonder Woman,” the new hit movie starring Israeli actress Gal Gadot. It’s a debate that I, as a Russian-born American Jew, find both surreal (probably because it would have never occurred to me to regard myself as nonwhite) and disturbing. Partly, that’s because the…
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Opinion The Forward Should Not Have Accepted An Ad From Jewish Voice For Peace
As a reader of the digital version of the Forward, I learned of the Jewish Voice for Peace ad in the June 2nd print edition, supporting imprisoned Palestinian terrorist Marwan Barghouti, through a news release from the Jewish News Service. In a “Note to Our Readers” on The Forward’s editorial page, publisher Rachel Fishman Fedderson…
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Opinion Rescue Ladino, The Language Of Sephardic Jews
Ladino, the language of Sephardic Jews, also represents a culture that has survived hundreds of years and is still relevant today. And more people need to know about it. Ladino is a pan-Mediterranean language that crosses geographic, linguistic and cultural boundaries. Otherwise known as Judeo-Spanish, Ladino is the hybrid dialect that Jews from the Iberian…
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Opinion Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown Did Not “Scold” ZOA
The title of your article “Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown Scolds ZOA For Praising Steve Bannon” is absolutely inaccurate and misleading. Senator Brown never “scolded” the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA). He made no negative statement about ZOA. At the ZOA luncheon, Brown merely voiced his erroneous opinions that the Trump Administration and Mr. Bannon are…
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Opinion The Iran war ended terribly for the US, and even worse for Israel
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Culture ‘My mayor Muslim, my bagel Jewish’ — the Knicks chant capturing New York’s soul
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Opinion The latest victim of the culture war over Israel is a leftwing, lapsed Catholic Bible scholar
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Fast Forward Antisemitic incidents in Germany remained elevated in 2025, fueled by rise-in far-right cases
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Culture The manosphere says women owe their husbands sex — Judaism says the opposite
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Fast Forward Georgia’s Jewish senator called his newly minted GOP opponent an antisemite. Why?