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
Kremlin Confidential: What Did Netanyahu and Putin Really Talk About?
Imagine we are a fly on the wall in an opulent office in the Kremlin, the site of today’s important meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Except that our “fly” is a mini drone replete with a high-resolution remote camera and a hyper-sensitive microphone. Every word is being broadcast…
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Opinion The Jewish Right Is Dead Wrong For Downplaying Anti-Semitism
Even though nearly half of the country’s Jewish community centers have received bomb threats; swastikas have defaced schools, colleges and synagogues, and cemeteries have been desecrated, there still seems to be a question about whether America is really experiencing a surge of anti-Semitism. Mystifyingly, other Jews are asking the question. While those skeptics decry the…
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Opinion I Support Boycotting Settlements — Should I Be Banned From Israel With My Children?
I have a theory about American Jewish kids and Israel. I’m trying it out on my own children. My theory boils down to “Love first, truth later.” When my kids near adulthood, I’ll encourage them to visit the West Bank. I’ll encourage them to see for themselves what it means to hold millions of people…
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Opinion Donald Trump’s Cabinet Is A Nightmare For Women
Every four years, our country produces a new administration, and every four years, women wonder what’s in it for us. We want government policies that will protect us against discrimination, help us earn a decent living, ensure that our children are well fed and educated and foster the overall well-being of our families. In an…
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Opinion The Frightening Human Cost Of Trump’s Latest Muslim Ban
On March 6, President Trump issued his Travel Ban 2.0 — officially called “Executive Order Protecting The Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into The United States.” Like its predecessor, which federal courts largely blocked, the latest travel ban brands refugees and other foreigners as a dangerous menace to our country and restricts the entry of…
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Opinion Myopic American Jews Ignore European Cousins Under Fire
Last week, liberal rabbi Danya Ruttenberg wrote a popular tweet storm, addressing the anti-Semitic attacks against the American Jewish community. Ruttenberg posited that while there may be in increase in non-violent actions against American Jews, we are not as vulnerable as other communities and thus we should support those in the more helpless Muslim and…
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Opinion What To Do When Your 7-Year Old Cheers ‘Trump’ In An Arab Neighborhood?
Like many parents, I wanted my 7-year-old son to witness the Women’s March to protest the new Trump administration. Aside from the historic value of the extravaganza, I imagined he might not have the opportunity to see many mass protests once our dictatorial, thin-skinned president stifles dissent in the name of “law and order.” But…
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Opinion Why It’s Moral To Defy Trump’s Immoral Crackdown On Immigrants
“An unjust law is not a law,” the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote from his Birmingham, Alabama, jail cell. The letter is well known – less so the fact that King was writing to fellow church leaders who disapproved of his breaking the law in the name of civil rights. I was saddened to…
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Opinion Why Trump’s Latest ‘Raving’ Tweets About Obama Wiretap Might Be His Worst Blunder Yet
Donald Trump’s relatively calm and controlled speech to Congress last week caused several analysts, including this one, to wonder whether the President might turn a corner and henceforth stop his loony outbursts. It took only a day or two for Trump to respond with a resounding and emphatic “No!” His series of spectacularly raving tweets…
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Opinion Purim Is No Laughing Matter In The Post-Truth Era
For centuries Purim, which celebrates the narrow escape of the Jews of ancient Persia from an edict of extermination, has been played as comedy and carnival in which a serious story of near-genocide is deflated through costume and parody. But this year, Purim does not seem quite so humorous. There is too much at stake….
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Opinion Letter To The Editor: It’s Time For Synagogues To Get ‘Politicalized’
In a recent article published in the Forward, editor-in-chief Jane Eisner wrote about her unease at the prospect of synagogues getting involved in growing Sanctuary Movement. “Unease” doesn’t even begin to describe how I felt upon reading her editorial. The crux of Eisner’s argument: this “nascent movement of churches, mosques and synagogues to become sanctuaries,…
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