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
Does Donald Trump Respect Women More Than Pro-Lifers Do?
Donald Trump’s candidacy has revealed many things, but I don’t think anyone expected it to cast a harsh light on the misogyny of the pro-life movement. Interestingly, the pro-lifers’ conundrum has a Jewish precedent. The latest controversy (of how many? I’ve lost count) started at the March 30 Republican Town Hall, in which Trump, clearly…
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Opinion How Bernie Sanders Reveals Our Own Jewish Identity Anxiety
This election cycle, a curious side-story has developed around the question of Bernie Sanders’s Jewish identity. What of Jew is he? What’s he like at Kiddush? What’d he do at that kibbutz? Why doesn’t he talk more about being Jewish? Why doesn’t he talk more about Yiddish socialism? Should we force him to be more…
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Opinion How an Anti-Zionist’s Embrace of Bernie Was a Gift to Bibi — and Hillary
In a certain sense, the cover story of this week’s Village Voice, titled “The Heretic” (subheading: “In a Zionist Age, the Bern Kicks It Old Shul”), represents a milestone victory for Benjamin Netanyahu. It’s also, to a lesser degree, a gift to Hillary Clinton. For the Israeli leader, the article represents a wholehearted embrace, in…
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Opinion How Long Can Distinction Between Anti-Zionism and Anti-Semitism Survive?
In adopting a statement distinguishing anti-Zionism from anti-Semitism, the Regents of the University of California have threaded a tiny needle with minute care. After intense public debate and lobbying from all sides, the Regents declared on March 24 that anti-Semitism had “no place” on its many campuses, but declined to issue a broad condemnation of…
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Opinion How Breaking the Silence Inspires My Pro-Israel Advocacy
Breaking the Silence, the organization of former Israeli soldiers who speak about their experiences serving in the occupied Palestinian Territories, has recently come under heavy attack from right-wing forces in Israel’s government and society. As a pro-Israel, pro-Palestinian activist and student, I have found it deeply frustrating to see brave soldiers denigrated and persecuted as…
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Opinion Should Jewish Peoplehood Mean Anything in Our Post-Ethnic Moment?
For more than 75 years, the idea of Jewish peoplehood has served to unify Jews. Essentially, it means that Jews share binding ties that cut across practice and national boundaries. It points to a shared history and, we presume and hope, a shared and connected future. The decades have shown that the “peoplehood” term has…
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Opinion 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,…
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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…
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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…
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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,…
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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…
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Opinion I grew up believing Australia was the best place to be Jewish. This Hanukkah shooting forces a reckoning I do not want.
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