In the Forward’s opinion section, you’ll find analysis and essays from diverse corners of the Jewish world.
To pitch an opinion piece, email our Opinion Editor, Talya Zax.
Opinion
-
Opinion
I’m Seeking Freedom From the Organized Jewish Community This Passover
Preparing this column, I thought of many “profound” things to say about Passover. I’m a rabbi, after all, as well as an ex-lawyer, writer, speaker, teacher — I know how to gab. And the holiday is a goldmine of inspiration: themes of liberation, kinesthetic rituals, DIY Jewish observances, fascinating texts and histories. But everything I…
-
Letters Free Speech Is Not the Issue With CUNY’s Students for Justice in Palestine
To the Editor: The so-called “Students for Justice in Palestine” group and its allies falsely claim that those who are objecting to the SJP’s actions at The City University of New York are trying to stifle the SJP’s free speech and prevent criticism of Israel (“New Challenge for CUNY Over Alleged Anti-Semitism,” April 8, 2016)….
-
Opinion Why It Was Right To Suspend Simone Zimmerman from Bernie Sanders Campaign
Simone Zimmerman had to be suspended. Not that I have any problem with her passion. Or, truth be told, with most of her politics. And certainly it’s hard not to be impressed by Zimmerman, the brilliant and eloquent organizer, a driving force within J Street U and IfNotNow, still in her mid-20s. (I wish Zimmerman…
Columnists View All
The Latest
-
Opinion How Ronit Elkabetz Gave Mizrahi Women Like Me Permission To Dream Big
The first time I saw Ronit Elkabetz in a movie, I didn’t find her beautiful. Her striking, sharp features seemed too strange and dark. And her intensity made me uncomfortable. A high school student at the time and an aspiring actress (a regrettable phase), I had bought into the beauty ideals the Israeli media had…
-
Opinion This Passover, We’re Joining Simone Zimmerman To Fight for Freedom for All
When the American Jewish establishment went after Simone Zimmerman, Bernie Sanders’s recent pick as his liaison to the Jewish community and a longtime social justice activist and organizer, it made a clear statement to an entire generation of young Jews: If you dare to depart from our position on Israel, you are not welcome in…
-
Opinion What Campaign Donor Lists Tell Us About Changing Nature of Jewish Political Power
Who speaks for the Jews? It’s an age-old question that’s often asked by partisans of every Jewish cause. What we usually mean is: Who pleads the Jewish case in the halls of decision-making? And no less important: Who decides what is the Jewish agenda? This campaign season we need to ask another question that sounds…
-
Opinion How Hillary’s Speech Patterns Reveal Biggest Advantage Over Bernie
Hillary Clinton is the most thoughtful candidate, the most “talkative,” “optimistic” and “positive.” That’s according to a recent article in The Wall Street Journal — a newspaper that is not exactly a fan of Clinton. Offering a textual analysis of the article concluded that Clinton’s language “indicated more cognitive processing, rather than self-certainty, a signal…
-
Opinion When Ashkenazi Jews Eat Kitniyot on Passover, Is It Cultural Appropriation — from Sephardim?
How do millions of Ashkenazi Jews react when, after hundreds of years, they finally get permission to eat kitniyot on Passover? We’re about to find out. Last December, the Conservative movement’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards approved a teshuvah, a Jewish legal ruling, permitting the consumption of kitniyot on Passover. Kitniyot — foods like…
-
Opinion How To Talk Politics at Your Family Seder Without Killing Each Other
An estimated 70% of American Jews participate in a Passover Seder — in any Jewish religious observance. This year, as we recount the story of the Exodus and symbolically taste the bitterness of slavery, we also must ask what, in 2016, makes this Passover different? At my Seder table this year, as we remember how…
-
Opinion Why Simone Zimmerman and Bernie Sanders Are Still on Same Side on Israel — Suspension or No
Just weeks after thousands of Israel advocates applauded Donald Trump at AIPAC, some of the same voices attempted a coordinated campaign to force Bernie Sanders to back off from his progressive positions on Israel before a Brooklyn debate. Sanders refused to back down in the debate. In order to solve the Mideast conflict, he argued,…
-
Opinion The Huge Irony That Jews for Cruz Can’t — or Won’t — Admit
Republican Jews are engaging in a to back Ted Cruz as the likely alternative to Donald Trump, but they seem to be missing the irony of their actions: They’re backing a candidate largely because he is pro-Israel, when his real motivation for taking that stance is that it fulfills a New Testament prophecy in which…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
Fast Forward Expelled Oberlin Chabad rabbi says he ‘made a mistake’ with explicit social media chats
- 2
Culture Louis Theroux’s Netflix documentary on the manosphere takes a detour into antisemitism
- 3
Fast Forward Illinois primary pits Jewish candidate with deep Israel ties against AIPAC spending
- 4
Opinion Trump has forced an impossible choice on American synagogues amid antisemitic attacks
In Case You Missed It
-
News Gaza protest slogans amounted to ‘racial slurs’ toward Jews, Trump administration alleges in new Harvard lawsuit
-
Looking Forward We need to talk about New Jersey’s Jewish master of literature. No, not that one
-
Culture Move over Thomas Edison, this deli savant is the Garden State’s newest inventor
-
Opinion We must rewrite the rulebook for fighting antisemitism — or conspiracists like Joe Kent will win the narrative wars
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
