Opinion

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  Get Tested for STDs This Month — It’s a Mitzvah

  April is . Throughout the month, there will be events held, lessons given, and materials distributed to encourage people across the United States — straight, gay, married, cis, trans, rich or poor — to practice safe sex. All will be encouraged to get tested for STDs. At a time when the practice of safe sex,…

  By Jonathan Paul Katz

  4 min read
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  Opinion

  In Response to North Carolina’s Law, a Jewish Case for Intersectionality

  North Carolina has once again made reactionary history, this time rolling back anti-discrimination protections for LGBT people by means of a complete fabrication: that transgender women are, in fact, male sexual predators. There is not a shred of data to support this conclusion — none. On the contrary, by forcing transgender men to shower, urinate…

  By Jay Michaelson Apr 1, 2016 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Why Did Netanyahu Appoint Ex-Settler Leader Dani Dayan to New York Post?

  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to appoint settler leader Dani Dayan, former head of the Council of Settlements, as Consul-General in New York, is a poor choice — and it reveals much of what is so wrong with his administration. Netanyahu seems to have an almost messianic belief that he is the only person…

  By Eetta Prince-Gibson Mar 31, 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

  

The Latest

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  Opinion

  ‘Bernie or Bust’ Is Self-Indulgent, Stubborn — and Dangerous

  There’s a strikingly cyclical pattern to the Bernie Sanders campaign. It’s a continual series of boom-bust mood swings. Euphoria alternates with anxious bravado as huge wins are followed inexorably by huge losses. One week Sanders is unstoppable; the next week he’s toast. And repeat. It’s been relentless: New Hampshire joy followed by South Carolina gloom,…

  By J.J. Goldberg Mar 31, 2016 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  No, Being Jewish in Belgium Doesn’t Feel Like 1930s Germany. And Yet…

  One of the more obscure words I know in Flemish is besnijden. As in, my son is besnijden. Circumcised. I’m an American Jew living in Belgium, in the Flemish-speaking north, and sometimes I feel the need to give the heads-up to his caretakers that he is, well, a little different from the other kids. Last…

  By Ilana Sumka Mar 29, 2016 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  6 Jewish Students Reveal How Israel Debate Colors Campus Life

  When the Forward put out a call for students to tell us about a college experience that had shaped their Jewish identity in some way — good, bad or otherwise — we expected to receive a diversity of responses. And in a way, we did: Students wrote about moments in Mumbai and Johannesburg and Ithaca,…

  By Forward Staff Mar 29, 2016 | 8 min read
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  Opinion

  Should I Feel Guilty for Worrying About Palmyra’s Stones, When ISIS Slaughters Humans?

  Mere stones broke my heart even as people lost their lives. For so many years, that has been the guilty paradox that plagued my feelings when I thought about the brutality of the Taliban and Al Qaeda and, later, the so-called Islamic State group. Now, with the Syrian Arab Army’s recapture of Palmyra (with help…

  By Larry Cohler-Esses Mar 29, 2016 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  How Can Israel End ‘Jewish Privilege’ When Most Citizens Believe They Deserve It?

  A little-discussed finding in the reveals that while 79% of Arabs “say there is a lot of discrimination against Muslims in Israel,” only “21% of Israeli Jews” see things this way. Yet 79% of Israeli Jews say that they (the Jews) “deserve preferential treatment.” So there’s a paradox. Jews want the system to discriminate in…

  By Mira Sucharov Mar 28, 2016 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  The Israeli Left Needs To Rethink Its Attitude Toward Settlers

  My daughter Aviv recently walked into a public bathroom and found a Palestinian cleaner at work, humming to herself. Suddenly, a voice from within one of the stalls cried out in rage: “You’re singing, huh? Probably celebrating the terror attack in Istanbul!” The Palestinian woman did not respond. Then, from the stall: “I’ll burn you…

  By Yoav Peck Mar 28, 2016 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Why Jews of Color Like Me Feel Unsafe After AIPAC’s Applause for Trump

  When I heard that Donald Trump would be speaking at the AIPAC conference, I hoped that all Jews would recognize him for the racist demagogue that he is and reject him. Instead he gave his speech, delivered his red meat talking points on Israel, and by and large the crowd applauded him. Kippot with Trump’s…

  By Lina Morales Mar 28, 2016 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Who’s To Blame for Israeli Soldier Shooting Downed Palestinian Attacker?

  Israelis were apparently scandalized this past week by a video showing an IDF soldier in Hebron shooting a wounded, incapacitated and unmoving Palestinian who had, a few minutes earlier, attacked another soldier with a knife, wounding him. The video that surfaced on Thursday was taken by a volunteer with the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem….

  By Dahlia Scheindlin Mar 27, 2016 | 4 min read