Opinion

• Opinion

  Want To Keep Students from Turning to BDS? Try Mock Peace Negotiations With a Twist

  As the two of us headed to the University of California, Santa Barbara to give a talk about Palestinian-Israeli peace back in 2009, we didn’t think much about it. We’re both veterans of this conflict, accustomed to the regular interactions between Palestinians and Israelis in the Middle East, and to the civil, collegial and interactive…

  By David Makovsky and Gaith al-Omari

  4 min read
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  Opinion

  Two Campus Tales and What They Say About American Vs. British Anti-Semitism

  The past week has seen two disturbing pieces of campus anti-Semitism that illustrate their contexts. At Harvard on April 14, Husam El-Coolaq, a law student and member of the university’s Justice for Palestine group asked Tzipi Livni, “How is it that you are so smelly?” And in Brighton, England, at the National Union of Students…

  By Dan Friedman Apr 22, 2016 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  How Poland Is Targeting Holocaust Scholar Jan T. Gross for the Sin of Remembering

  The anti-Semitic bloodbath that consumed the small Polish town of Jedwabne on July 10, 1941 might have been forgotten to history were it not for the scholarship of the Polish-American historian Jan T. Gross. Now, it would seem, Poland’s new government wishes Gross himself could be forgotten. In his short study, “Neighbors,” published in 2001,…

  By Liam Hoare Apr 22, 2016 | 3 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 Americans keep getting killed in the West Bank. Here’s how the US could fight that awful trend

  

• Nora Berman First Camp Auschwitz, now Alligator Alcatraz — why the right is obsessed with commodifying brutality

  

• Dan Perry What exactly is going on between Israel and Syria — and is the prospect of peace dead?

  

• Emily Tamkin Zohran Mamdani’s victory proves it: The ‘gotcha’ mode of fighting antisemitism has to go

  

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  Opinion

  I Was the ‘Child Who Does Not Know How To Ask’ — About My Father’s Suicide

  Passover is here. It is usually one of my favorite holidays. I love the ritual of preparing the house, the smell of the food and the joyous atmosphere at the Seder table. But this year is different. Passover begins only three days after the one year anniversary of my father’s suicide. My father was trapped…

  By Deborah Greene Apr 21, 2016 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  I’m Seeking Freedom From the Organized Jewish Community This Passover

  Preparing this column, I thought of many “profound” things to say about Passover. I’m a rabbi, after all, as well as an ex-lawyer, writer, speaker, teacher — I know how to gab. And the holiday is a goldmine of inspiration: themes of liberation, kinesthetic rituals, DIY Jewish observances, fascinating texts and histories. But everything I…

  By Jay Michaelson Apr 21, 2016 | 4 min read
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  Letters

  Free Speech Is Not the Issue With CUNY’s Students for Justice in Palestine

  To the Editor: The so-called “Students for Justice in Palestine” group and its allies falsely claim that those who are objecting to the SJP’s actions at The City University of New York are trying to stifle the SJP’s free speech and prevent criticism of Israel (“New Challenge for CUNY Over Alleged Anti-Semitism,” April 8, 2016)….

  By Susan B. Tuchman Apr 20, 2016 | < 1 min read
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  Opinion

  Why It Was Right To Suspend Simone Zimmerman from Bernie Sanders Campaign

  Simone Zimmerman had to be suspended. Not that I have any problem with her passion. Or, truth be told, with most of her politics. And certainly it’s hard not to be impressed by Zimmerman, the brilliant and eloquent organizer, a driving force within J Street U and IfNotNow, still in her mid-20s. (I wish Zimmerman…

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

  How Ronit Elkabetz Gave Mizrahi Women Like Me Permission To Dream Big

  The first time I saw Ronit Elkabetz in a movie, I didn’t find her beautiful. Her striking, sharp features seemed too strange and dark. And her intensity made me uncomfortable. A high school student at the time and an aspiring actress (a regrettable phase), I had bought into the beauty ideals the Israeli media had…

  By Ayelet Tsabari Apr 19, 2016 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  This Passover, We’re Joining Simone Zimmerman To Fight for Freedom for All

  When the American Jewish establishment went after Simone Zimmerman, Bernie Sanders’s recent pick as his liaison to the Jewish community and a longtime social justice activist and organizer, it made a clear statement to an entire generation of young Jews: If you dare to depart from our position on Israel, you are not welcome in…

  By Ethan Miller and Sara Sandmel Apr 19, 2016 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  What Campaign Donor Lists Tell Us About Changing Nature of Jewish Political Power

  Who speaks for the Jews? It’s an age-old question that’s often asked by partisans of every Jewish cause. What we usually mean is: Who pleads the Jewish case in the halls of decision-making? And no less important: Who decides what is the Jewish agenda? This campaign season we need to ask another question that sounds…

  By J.J. Goldberg Apr 19, 2016 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  How Hillary’s Speech Patterns Reveal Biggest Advantage Over Bernie

  Hillary Clinton is the most thoughtful candidate, the most “talkative,” “optimistic” and “positive.” That’s according to a recent article in The Wall Street Journal — a newspaper that is not exactly a fan of Clinton. Offering a textual analysis of the article concluded that Clinton’s language “indicated more cognitive processing, rather than self-certainty, a signal…

  By Irina Eremia Bragin Apr 18, 2016 | 4 min read