Opinion

• Opinion

  How Jews Are Reacting to New Era of Ties With Iran

  Now that the United States and European Union have lifted economic sanctions on Iran, how are Jewish observers — from America to Israel, and across the political spectrum — reacting? And where do they believe we should go from here? We’ve gathered a few ideas, many excerpted from longer pieces (follow the links to read them…

  By Forward Staff

  4 min read
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  Opinion

  Liberal Jews Didn’t Betray Israel — Our Organizations Betrayed Us

  As vital as Martin Luther King Day is on America’s calendar, it has a special meaning this year for American Jews. This year, 2016, we will mark the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the fracturing of the historic black-Jewish civil rights alliance. If you want to talk about American Jewish liberal betrayal, as and…

  By J.J. Goldberg Jan 17, 2016 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Was Ted Cruz Talking About the Jews When He Slammed ‘New York Values’?

  (JTA) — In the very first episode of “The West Wing,” some of the president’s advisers engage in a heated argument with a group of Christian activists. Among the advisers are two of the show’s most prominent Jewish characters: White House Communications Director Toby Ziegler (played by Richard Schiff) and the Deputy Chief of Staff…

  By Gabe Friedman Jan 15, 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

  Worried About BDS and ‘Intersectionality’? Act Against Israel’s Occupation.

  David Bernstein, the new president of the Jewish Council on Public Affairs, wrote last week about an important phenomenon impacting campus activism and debate around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: intersectionality. Bernstein observed that the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, or BDS, has been building alliances with other social justice groups, emphasizing the solidarity between Palestinians and…

  By Amna Farooqi Jan 14, 2016 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Let’s Reform Sex Abuse Laws To Offer Justice — Not Protect Predators

  No matter what happens at the Oscars, the very best film of 2015 was “Spotlight,” the improbable drama of how a team of newspaper reporters painstakingly revealed an institutional cover-up of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. The film’s excellence lay not only in its superb acting and storytelling, but in the way it…

  Jan 14, 2016 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Haim Gouri’s Rejection of Zionist Art Prize Restored My Faith in Zionism

  Haim Gouri has won just about every literary prize that Israel has to offer. Yet, in my eyes, he made his strongest, most Zionist statement on January 5, when news broke that he had refused to accept a prize for “Zionist Works of Art,” awarded by the Israeli Ministry of Culture and Sport. The award…

  By Eetta Prince-Gibson Jan 13, 2016 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  How Chris Hughes Wrecked The New Republic — and Broke One Reader’s Heart

  I picked up my first copy of The New Republic as a teenager in 1993. The cover featured a caricature of Ross Perot as a salivating bug with the teaser “Pox Populi.” The magazine was smart, cheeky, disputatious and highbrow. It was also very Jewish. It was love at first sight. Ever since college, I…

  By Daniel Treiman Jan 12, 2016 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  ‘I Was 13 When Marc Gafni’s Abuse Began’

  With all the accounts that have come out about Marc Gafni, the former rabbi and spiritual guru, you may wonder what more I have to offer. But this story is not over, even if Gafni never teaches or abuses again. Right now there are children in the Jewish world, and in other communities, who are…

  By Sara Kabakov Jan 12, 2016 | 9 min read
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  Opinion

  Recalling Neil Gandler, an Off-Beat Jewish Tech Maven Murdered for No Reason

  I usually spend the Sunday following the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas reflecting on all of the amazing new tech products I saw over the previous week. Of course I have a lot on my mind as this was the best CES I’ve experienced yet, but today I will put those reflections…

  By Jason Miller Jan 12, 2016 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Why Are Our Federation Dollars Funding Israeli Settlements?

  (CLARIFICATION BELOW) When Haaretz released its recent investigation into the funding of Israeli settlements, revealing that settler groups in East Jerusalem and the West Bank received more than $220 million in tax-deductible donations from U.S. organizations between 2009 and 2013, we were troubled — but not surprised. For the past year, we and our fellow…

  By Elie Leaderman-Bray and Tali DeGroot Jan 12, 2016 | 5 min read
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  Opinion

  How David Bowie Made It OK To Be a Wandering Jewish Misfit

  Like many Jewish kids, and many more gay kids, I grew up not belonging. I was a nerd and a weirdo. What other kids seemed to know intuitively — how to dress, how to talk — I had to puzzle out somehow, often unsuccessfully. That included sex; I didn’t know I was gay, and the…

  By Jay Michaelson Jan 11, 2016 | 4 min read