Opinion

• Opinion

  Should a Liberal Jewish Feminist Vote for Hillary — or Bernie?

  If Hillary Clinton wins the Democratic nomination, she will be the first-ever female presidential candidate from a majority political party in United States history. If Bernie Sanders wins the Democratic nomination, he will be the first-ever Jewish presidential candidate from a major political party. What’s a liberal Jewish feminist voter to do? The question of…

  By Sally Kohn

  4 min read
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  Opinion

  Could Michael Bloomberg Elbow Out Bernie Sanders To Become First Jewish President?

  Just when you thought the 2016 presidential race couldn’t get any weirder, it got weirder. On January 23, associates of New York’s billionaire ex-mayor Michael Bloomberg let it be known that he’s exploring a possible third-party White House bid. This isn’t Bloomberg’s first presidential exploration. It’s his third. His indecision could earn him the label…

  By J.J. Goldberg Jan 29, 2016 | 5 min read
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  Letters

  Reflecting Jews’ Real Values? We’re Already On It.

  I couldn’t agree more with J.J. Goldberg’s conclusion in his column titled “First Step to Reflecting Jews’ Real Values? Focus Less on Israel,” published online January 22, that the real issues that motivate Jews to organized political action are classic domestic progressive issues, such as economic inequality, civil rights, reproductive rights and racial justice. But…

  By Stosh Cotler Jan 28, 2016 | 2 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

  Yes, Our Anti-Israel Protest Disrupted LGBT Conference — That’s the Point!

  The debate over pinkwashing at the Creating Change conference in Chicago this past weekend was agitational. It was uncomfortable. It brought out tensions in our relationships, our values and our communities. That’s a good thing. I was always taught that Shabbat is a time to imagine the world to come. So, when I learned that…

  By Scout Bratt Jan 28, 2016 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Why My Jewish Vote Feels Irrelevant During Primary Season

  This is the time when, every four years, the civic nerd in me becomes jealous of the people living in Iowa and New Hampshire. I want to be courted, patronized and promised all sorts of political gifts. I want to feel as if I can help shape the national debate. I want to be interviewed,…

  By Jane Eisner Jan 28, 2016 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Bernie Sanders Rises — and the Ghost of Saul Alinsky Will Surely Follow

  Decades before the term was coined, community organizer Saul Alinsky was already exploiting the advantages of “intersectionality,” the contemporary buzzword of social protest. Alinsky, once described by conservative thinker William F. Buckley as “close to an organizational genius,” united groups of underprivileged minorities with diverse grievances in mid-20th century Chicago to form a protest bloc…

  By Chemi Shalev (Haaretz) Jan 27, 2016 | 6 min read
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  Opinion

  100 Years Later, Has Louis Brandeis’s Supreme Court Nomination Changed Anything?

  “Louis D. Brandeis, the first Jew nominated by President Wilson to the Supreme Court of the United States,” the “magic bulletin board” outside the Forward building on the Lower East Side of Manhattan announced in Yiddish on Friday, January 28, 1916. “God be blest!” an onlooker quoted by the New-York Tribune responded. “In Russia we…

  By Jonathan Sarna Jan 27, 2016 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  How the Truths Marco Rubio Told an Atheist Could Lure Jews to GOP

  At an intimate campaign stop in Waverly, Iowa, on January 18, an atheist asked Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio why his recent ad said nothing about policy ideas and instead went into great detail about faith, God and heaven. The questioner wanted to know how Rubio planned to uphold the religious rights of all, not…

  By Bethany Mandel Jan 27, 2016 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  How Britain Remembers the Holocaust, More Than 70 Years On

  As the UK Deputy Ambassador in Warsaw from 2004 to 2008, I attended many events during my time in Poland to commemorate World War II. But one I will never forget was the 60th anniversary of the liberation at Auschwitz. In the middle of Polish winter, world leaders, including the UK Foreign Secretary and Prince…

  By Patrick Davies Jan 27, 2016 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  How Eugene Borowitz Reached My Heart With Inspiring Imperatives of Jewish Thought

  (JTA) — In Ethics of the Fathers, the rabbis teach that we must grant respect and honor to an individual who teaches us even the smallest bit of knowledge. For those of us who were the students of Rabbi Eugene Borowitz, who died last week at the age of 91, the obligation is increased a…

  By David Ellenson Jan 26, 2016 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Israel’s Top General Praises Iran Deal as ‘Strategic Turning Point’ in Slap at Bibi

  Remember the nuclear agreement between Iran and the West? You know — the one that Benjamin Netanyahu insisted was the biggest danger to Israel and the Jews since time immemorial? Well, Israel’s military chief of staff told a prestigious defense conference last week that far from being a mortal threat, the deal has actually removed…

  By J.J. Goldberg Jan 26, 2016 | 6 min read