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
How Bibi’s Arrest Or Election Defeat Could Revive The Peace Process
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces a police investigation regarding very expensive gifts that he allegedly received during his tenure, recently raised the option of calling early elections for the Knesset. He used an odd excuse for the timing, something about the reform of electronic media, but political observers believe that his real motive…
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Opinion Letter To The Editor: Don’t Forget Trump’s Attacks Against An “International Elite”
Like other professed conservative writers, Bethany Mandel has joined a campaign to vilify liberals by attacking claims of right-wing anti-Semitism. At the same time, she excuses the anti-Semitic sentiment fomented by Trump’s thinly veiled attacks against an “international elite” undermining American values and interests. The crudest example was his final presidential campaign commercial singling out…
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Opinion The Rabbi Refused To Do What?
The year was 1968, and I was senior at Hewlett High School, on Long Island. I was a jock, Liz Adams was a cheerleader, and it seemed like a perfect match. We liked the same music and we made each other laugh, so it was only natural that we go out. On a date. Maybe…
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Opinion AIPAC Reflects Heroism Of Jewish Power — And Its Perils
It’s fitting that the AIPAC Policy Conference, which convened this week in Washington, D.C., falls every year at around the same time as the holiday of Purim. Because the two have a lot in common. On Purim, Jews read the Book of Esther, which tells the story of a Jew who unexpectedly gains influence with…
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Opinion Will Electing This Little-Known Jewish Democrat Stop Trump?
On the day before the first anniversary of Barack Obama’s first inauguration as president, voters in Massachusetts went to the polls in a special election to fill the Senate seat vacated by the death of Ted Kennedy. By all logic, the Democratic candidate, state attorney general Martha Coakley, should have coasted to victory over her…
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Opinion This Passover, Remember The Past But Fight For The Future
At my Seder growing up, there would come a moment when everyone would share a memory from leaving Egypt. “I didn’t want to leave my friends,” my older cousin would say. “I was afraid I left the fire burning in the house,” my mom, known for checking our stove before leaving for a trip, joked…
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Opinion Why Fury Over Emmett Till Artwork At Whitney Biennial Is So Dangerous
The controversy over “cultural appropriation,” which in recent years has dogged everything from pop music videos to Halloween costumes to museum exhibits, is now having a particularly ugly episode at the Whitney Biennial, the renowned exhibition of American art at New York’s Whitney Museum. This time, the backlash targets a painting by Brooklyn artist Dana…
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Opinion How Jewish Groups Are Perpetuating A Myth About Trump And Anti-Semitism
The nomination and election of Donald Trump has caused a record spike in anti-Semitism. That is the narrative many Jewish groups and the media have promoted since the Republican primaries. Here’s an unfortunate fact for those continuing to press this narrative: it keeps on being proven false. First, let’s take the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) report…
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Opinion The Israeli Settler Movement Isn’t Much Of A Movement
Israel is a sovereign state and recognized member of the United Nations while the West Bank and East Jerusalem under the international law of armed conflict remain occupied territories. With the methodical precision of a dumb machine, the Knesset had passed each month for the past two years a new law or amendment not so…
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Opinion What Happens When Jewish Anti-Semitism Causes Terror?
The recent arrest of a 19-year-old Israeli with dual American citizenship who is accused of issuing bomb threats to more than 100 Jewish institutions around the world exposed a blind spot in our understanding of anti-Semitism. Sometimes a Jew can commit acts of anti-Semitism. Sometimes hateful acts come from within. Jews, given our history, are…
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Opinion Goodbye, Jimmy Breslin, Gruff Mensch
Jimmy Breslin was an enemy of the people — at least those people who abuse their power to dash the American dream. I first encountered Breslin, who died last week at age 88, in December 2000. I had just launched an online syndication marketplace, Featurewell.com, to fight the effort by many publishers to seize the…
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