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
I Give My Readers Cold Hard Evidence About Palestinians. They Refuse To Believe It.
It’s becoming more and more obvious that there are some folks out there who simply can’t abide good news. Not just because they’re pessimists and get thrown when things are going well. No, we’re talking about the sort of people who find good news offensive. It outrages them. Their ranks are growing, and so is…
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Opinion ‘The West Wing’ Is Still the Jewiest Show for Our Post-Jewish Times
On a recent episode of “The West Wing Weekly” — a podcast that discusses Aaron Sorkin’s celebrated TV series “The West Wing” — Joshua Malina reported that a certain Facebook commenter, “Jim,” had complained that the podcast discussed Jewish topics too often. You can certainly disagree with Jim’s judgment, but he’s right that Jewishness has…
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Opinion Quit Your Liberal Condescension Toward Jews Who Love Trump
As a Jewish immigrant from the Former Soviet Union whose family came to the United States in 1980, I’ve been dismayed to see so many liberals looking down their noses at Russian Jews who support Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. Writing in the Forward, Margarita Gokun Silver recently asked, “How Can Russian Jews Be So…
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Opinion My Mayor Thinks He Can Show ‘Who Owns Jerusalem’ — With a Cable Car
Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat declared recently that new transportation arrangements for the city have been designed to “cause the wider world to understand who really owns the city.” Barkat was describing his proposed project to create a new tourist entrance into the Old City by building a cable car up from David’s City through the…
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Opinion Don’t Tell Me There Are No Qualified Ethiopian Israelis To Fill the Position
I have always heard it said in the Israeli public sector and professional social circles, by way of explaining why so few Ethiopian Jews hold positions of prominence in these realms, that no one from among our community is sufficiently qualified. That if even one Ethiopian Israeli would meet the minimum qualifications for this or…
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Opinion That Time Hillary Clinton Heard Me — On Everything from BDS to Pre-K
Full disclosure: I’m a Democrat. I volunteered for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 and voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 New York primary. I’ve donated money to Hillary for America. But it wasn’t until last week that I became, in my heart, a Hillary Clinton supporter. Heading into a Cleveland, OH, fundraiser last…
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Opinion Stop Trying To Paint Democrats as Weak On Israel
(JTA) — Every four years the same movie plays at the Jewish Political Film Festival: It’s the one where the Democrats pass another party platform with more ironclad support for Israel and then nominate yet another presidential candidate whose record on Israel is beyond question. The ending is always the same, too, with two-thirds to three-quarters…
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Opinion Israelis and Palestinians Could Make Peace Tomorrow If Not for This Misperception
If the political will existed, Israelis and Palestinians could reach a peace agreement tomorrow, based on specific terms that majorities on both sides would accept. But it’s not likely to happen, in part because of the nearly bottomless mistrust that each side feels toward the other. What’s more, mistrust has been growing over the past…
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Opinion Donald Trump’s 7 Meanest Dog Whistles, Ranked From Worst to Not Quite So Bad
“Dog whistle politics” has been a major part of this year’s election cycle. Like blowing a super high-pitched horn that only bigots can hear, Trump has used hashtags, internet memes, speeches and off-the-cuff rambling to curry favor with a wide range of fringe (and terrifyingly not-so-fringe) groups. He knows that not only do his antics…
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Opinion Burkini Wars Show What’s Wrong With the Religious Right — and Secular Left
No matter how progressive our society has become, a woman’s appearance is still scrutinized, commented upon, critiqued, evaluated and dismissed far more frequently than anything said about a man. Just ask Carly Fiorina. Or Hillary Clinton. But this double standard isn’t simply being exercised by those who weren’t brought up with any manners, or lost…
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Opinion If Israel’s Occupation Is Permanent, Why Isn’t It the Same as Apartheid?
Apartheid. The word is thrown around on the left-wing side of Israel-Palestine politics these days, and often it seems intended to provoke outrage, not reflection. And indeed, that’s exactly what it does on the right. But with the news on August 22 that only 58% of Israelis still support a two-state solution (and that’s counting…
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In Case You Missed It
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Yiddish כ׳בענק נאָך די סעקולערע ייִדן פֿון אַמאָלLonging for the way secular Jews used to be
מײַן פֿעטער האָט נישט געהיט שבת אָדער כּשרות אָבער ווען ער האָט אָפּגעריכט דעם סדר האָט ער געקלונגען ווי אַ פֿרומער ייִד.
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Fast Forward Expelled Oberlin Chabad rabbi says he ‘made a mistake’ with explicit social media chats
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Yiddish פֿינעף פֿאַקטן וועגן פּסח וואָס איר ווייסט אפֿשר נישט Five facts about Passover you may not know
דאָס רייכערן פּאַפּיראָסן יום־טובֿ האָט צונויפֿגעבראַכט מענטשן
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Culture A brilliant Jewish storyteller may be gone, but her characters are ‘still talking’
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