Opinion

• Opinion

  How Ivanka Trump’s Aggressively Upbeat Lifestyle Brand Normalizes Donald’s Politics

  There are at least two Ivanka Trumps. One is a woman; the other is a namesake brand. But what is Ivanka’s brand, exactly? The most familiar aspect of it is probably her clothes and shoes, but it also includes fine jewelry, a prominent role in her father’s company, and, in some difficult-to-sort-out mix of the…

  By Phoebe Maltz Bovy

  3 min read
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  Opinion

  How Richard Spencer Created a New Alt-Golem

  If you saw the Atlantic’s hair-raising video of Richard Spencer talking at an American neo-Nazi “conference” that celebrated Donald Trump’s victory, then you saw Spencer bash “the mainstream media,” calling them “leftists and cucks,” “genuinely stupid,” and liars. He also “wonders” if “these people are people at all, or instead soulless golem, animated by some…

  By Maya Barzilai Nov 23, 2016 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  How I Convinced My Russian Jewish Grandmother Not to Vote for Trump

  My 80-year-old Russian Jewish grandmother did not vote for Donald Trump. She lives in Massachusetts, so it didn’t make much of a difference in the election’s outcome. Qualitatively, however, her vote mattered. Having started out in Trump’s corner, like the overwhelming majority of ex-Soviet Jews, particularly older ones, she allowed herself to be persuaded by…

  By Sasha Senderovich Nov 22, 2016 | 4 min read

Columnists View All

• Jodi Rudoren This is my last column as editor of the Forward

  

• Jay Michaelson American Jews were played — now what?

  

• Rob Eshman I have the answer to Jon Stewart’s toughest question about Israel

  

• Nora Berman ‘Eddington’ is full of conspiracy theories but it’s not about Jews. Or is it?

  

• Dan Perry Recognizing a Palestinian state is a great way to doom Palestinians

  

• Emily Tamkin Is starvation in Gaza really Israel’s fault? The facts are clear

  

The Latest

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  Opinion

  5 Ways People Respond When You Post CNN’s ‘Are Jews People?’ On Facebook

  I took a quick scroll through Facebook yesterday, as one does. My Facebook feed has gotten notably darker these days, what with the encroaching sense of imminent doom, and I’ve adjusted my gauge for what registers as “shocking” accordingly. One post, however, managed to make me take pause. It was a screenshot of a CNN…

  By Lana Adler Nov 22, 2016 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  To Survive Trump, All Progressives Need To Become Sabras

  Before Sabra was a brand of hummus, it was a nickname for Israelis, who were said to be like the Sabra cactus: tough outside, but tender inside. In the age of Donald Trump, all progressives must learn to be Sabras. We, like a generation of Israelis who lived with perpetual war, must learn to be…

  By Jay Michaelson Nov 22, 2016 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Jared and Ivanka, Separate Business From Politics Before You Become Walking Anti-Semitic Tropes

  Dear Ivanka and Jared, Please excuse the informality of my greeting. Your celebrity has become so ubiquitous that first names are all that’s needed. You are, right now, the most powerful Jews in America, and I trust you recognize the significance of your position seriously enough to listen to my plea. Because I’m worried. The…

  By Jane Eisner Nov 22, 2016 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  4 Questions To Ask Before Wearing the Safety Pin, From a Jew of Color

  If I — a multi-heritage, brown, Jewish man — get chased down by neo-Nazis and find someone wearing a safety pin, how will I know if that person will actually do what it takes to save my life? Do they really know what they’re signing up for? I’ve found myself wondering this over the past…

  By Jared Jackson Nov 21, 2016 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Let’s Create New Jewish Rituals To Cope With the Trump Era

  In the wake of this toxic election season and its deeply destabilizing outcome, many people have been scrambling for ways to react, to process and to organize. From this environment of confusion, many small Jewish grassroots efforts have sprung up, trying to find ways to understand and react to a new world — through the…

  By Lana Adler Nov 21, 2016 | < 1 min read
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  Opinion

  I Vowed Never To Talk Politics From My Pulpit. Then Trump Came Along.

  Every era has its pivotal where-were-you-when-you-heard-that-x-happened moment. Where were you when you heard that President Kennedy was assassinated? That the Reverend Martin Luther King was murdered? That astronaut Neil Armstrong landed on the moon? These events are watershed moments that shatter our routine and make us challenge fundamental assumptions about the world around us. They…

  By Ysoscher Katz Nov 20, 2016 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  7 Rules for Surviving Thanksgiving With Your Trump-Loving Family

  My father has the Trump lawn sign. And the bumper sticker. And the hat. And the T-shirt. “Make America Great Again,” they say. Ever since he was shot at during a robbery in his drugstore, my once liberal father has become increasingly conservative. He is a regular Hannity listener and O’Reilly watcher. As I’ve gotten…

  By Michael Rothbaum Nov 20, 2016 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Faced With Steve Bannon, Jewish Groups Need To Reach Out to Decent Republicans

  As Donald Trump takes his first steps toward staffing his administration, he’s confronting us with yet another conundrum: What to do when the leader of the world’s greatest democracy makes Steve Bannon his designated chief strategist? Bannon, the man who took over the right-wing provocateur website Breitbart News and turned it into the central bulletin…

  By J.J. Goldberg Nov 18, 2016 | 4 min read