Opinion

• Opinion

  How Timid Israel Education Is Failing Our Kids

  As an educator in New York, I believe that Jewish education in this country teaches kids to engage with the world and its complexities, just not with Israeli politics. It teaches them to speak up about racism, but not Israeli racism. It teaches them to fight for equality, but that in Israel that fight has…

  By Misha Shulman

  3 min read
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  Opinion

  Anti-Semitism Is Alive and Well on TV — ‘Quantico’ Proves It

  Earlier this year, the only show to catch my eye amid the lackluster Fall 2015 television season was ABC’s “Quantico.” Marketed as Grey’s Anatomy-meets-the-FBI, the hour-long soapy delight captured my attention largely because it features a non-white female lead (Bollywood star Priyanka Chopra) with an ensemble cast that sports a hodgepodge of gender and racial…

  By J.E. Reich Dec 20, 2015 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Why I’m Moving My Family to Israel — Despite the Violence

  (JTA) — I can tell that some friends and relatives think my decision to move my family to Israel for a year is, well, questionable. “So you’re really gonna do this?” one friend asked recently over coffee, eyes widening. My father suggested over the phone that we might consider somewhere in the country less “tense”…

  By Jennifer Richler Dec 20, 2015 | 5 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 A new humanitarian outrage is unfolding in the Middle East. It’s not in Gaza

  

• Nora Berman The left is turning on AOC over Israel — and imperiling its own agenda

  

• Dan Perry Actually, Trump made things between Israel and Iran way worse

  

• Emily Tamkin Zohran Mamdani’s victory proves it: The ‘gotcha’ mode of fighting antisemitism has to go

  

The Latest

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  Opinion

  The Four Questions of the ‘Israel Project’

  HOLLYWOOD — Day two in Tinseltown, and people have been asking me questions. Thought that was my job… One question was about my questions. Why bother asking “Israel questions” of Americans? There is no way that Americans are going to come up with the same answers as Israelis, so what’s the point? My answer to…

  By Robbie Gringras Dec 19, 2015 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  What New Vatican Memo Really Means for Jews for Jesus — and Us

  It’s hard to overstate the importance of the new document on the conversion of Jews that the Vatican released December 10. Especially when you consider that most of the reporting on it is wrong. According to most headlines, the Vatican announced that “Catholics should not try to convert Jews.” That’s not what actually happened. What…

  By J.J. Goldberg Dec 18, 2015 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Landing in Tinseltown

  “So, like, I know that there’s no occupation. Like no one’s allowed to admit that there’s an occupation. Except a lot of people are saying that there is an occupation. More than a lot of people. Like nearly everyone is screaming that there’s an occupation. So maybe, I’m thinking, there must be like, a little…

  By Robbie Gringras Dec 18, 2015 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  A Muslim, a Jew and a Christian Walk Into a Texas Mosque…

  Like other liberal East Coasters with limited experience of Texas, I have tended to snidely dismiss the entire state as a jingoistic bastion of reaction. Yet a December 13 visit to Irving, a city of 232,000 abutting Dallas, forcefully reminded me that there is another Texas, at once religiously devout and deeply humane. Amid an…

  By Walter Ruby Dec 17, 2015 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  The Left’s Double Standard on ‘Tolerance’

  When is open dialogue prized, and when is it synonymous with capitulation? Two disputes that happened within a day of each other highlighted that question along the deepest fault lines in modern Jewish life: the dispute over religious pluralism, and the relationship between Israeli Jews and their Arab neighbors. On December 9, Israel’s Ashkenazi chief…

  By Jane Eisner Dec 17, 2015 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Land and People

  So Orlando has very nice large hotels. They are close by one another, but you’re not allowed to walk between them. There are roads with some form of sidewalk, but no lighting. I reckon if you’re not expected to walk there at night, get a cab even if it’s the middle of the day. Still…

  By Robbie Gringras Dec 17, 2015 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Don’t Fence Me In

  Okay, so first of all I have to acknowledge to myself that the schedule was a little extreme. To keep alert and open to a range of different people talking with me, to wander all over Manhattan to meet them, and then to expect myself to be sufficiently awake to write any thoughts other than…

  By Robbie Gringras Dec 16, 2015 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  Why Your JNF Donation Might Be Used for Settlements

  Ask any American Jew what the Jewish National Fund does, and they will most likely answer, “It plants trees in Israel.” But the reality is much more complicated. Even a close reading of JNF-USA’s tax forms and website does not reveal how much of the $100 million dollars American Jews donate each year flows to…

  By Jill Jacobs Dec 16, 2015 | 4 min read