Opinion

• Opinion

  5 Times GOP Bogeyman Sidney Blumenthal Advised Hillary Clinton on Israel

  (JTA) Sidney Blumenthal’s name came up 49 times in a hearing convened Thursday by the special congressional committee investigating the deadly 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Why? Well, the star witness was Hillary Rodham Clinton — the secretary of state at the time of the attack, whom Blumenthal has advised for…

  By Ron Kampeas

  4 min read
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  Opinion

  Blame Mahmoud Abbas for Violence? But He’s ‘Mr. Irrelevant’

  It seems there are almost as many explanations for the current terror wave plaguing Israel as there are people trying to explain it. We’re told it’s caused by economic despair, rage at the occupation, hatred of Jews, alarm (false or otherwise) over the Temple Mount, and incitement by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Each theory…

  By J.J. Goldberg Oct 25, 2015 | 5 min read
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  Opinion

  Let’s Keep Judaism Boring!

  It’s hardly a new complaint about Jewish observance, though it is one gaining traction. How — clergy and directors of non-Orthodox synagogues across the country are asking themselves – can we make services less boring? It’s a justifiable aim. Attendance is down and there’s a lot to compete with, whether cell phones, delicious food, or…

  By Elissa Strauss Oct 24, 2015 | 3 min read

Columnists View All

• Jodi Rudoren This is my last column as editor of the Forward

  

• Jay Michaelson Being Jewish in America today feels like walking multiple tightropes at once

  

• Rob Eshman A precise, Chekhovian logic guided Israel’s strike on Iran — but chaos could come next

  

• Nora Berman Greta Thunberg’s Gaza flotilla was never going to help Palestinians

  

• Dan Perry Celebrating my daughter’s birthday in a bomb shelter, as missiles struck Tel Aviv

  

• Emily Tamkin Trump’s latest move makes Mahmoud Khalil a Joseph for our times

  

The Latest

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  Opinion

  Does Gleaming Palestinian City on Hill Offer Hope Amid Violence?

  A gleaming bus stop greets visitors on the main road to the new Palestinian city of Rawabi in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Construction equipment is busy carving blocks out of the hillsides. A sign directs traffic to the police station in one direction and to the showroom filled with scale models in another. A giant…

  By Seth J. Frantzman Oct 24, 2015 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Why Benjamin Netanyahu’s Defense of Hitler Is So Wrong — and Matters So Much

  Once the laughter and groans have died down, the unorthodox version of Holocaust history offered by Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem the other day confronts us with a deeply unsettling question: What to make of the fact that the Jewish state, of all places, has a Holocaust revisionist for a prime minister? Too harsh? Perhaps “Hitler…

  By J.J. Goldberg Oct 22, 2015 | 5 min read
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  Opinion

  When Prayer Becomes Provocation on the Temple Mount

  To tell Jews that their connection to the Temple Mount is a fraudulent invention, to attempt to erase thousands of years of documented historical ties, to ignore that every Jew in prayer faces that hilltop in Jerusalem from wherever he or she is in the world, to pretend that Jews are just colonialist interlopers on…

  By Jane Eisner Oct 22, 2015 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Stop Enabling Donors’ Outsized Influence on Jewish Life

  I don’t presume to know all the positive attributes that define true leadership in our age, but I can confidently tell you what does not, by itself, constitute a good Jewish leader: money. Financial capacity to donate to an organization or a cause is not the same as leadership — and yet, all too frequently,…

  By Jay Ruderman Oct 22, 2015 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  4 Times Israelis and Palestinians Stuck Up for One Another

  As the latest round of violence unfolds, Israelis and Palestinians seem to mostly be interacting in bloody, enraged spasms of appalling brutality. Quickly uploaded to social media feeds, horrific videos provide graphic proof of just how awful humans can be to one another. And yet, those aren’t the only stories. Amid the violence and hatred…

  By Eetta Prince-Gibson Oct 21, 2015 | 5 min read
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  Opinion

  When Israelis Kill Innocents for the Crime of Looking Arab

  “If I would have known he is not the terrorist, believe me, I would have looked after him like I look after myself. In moments of fear people do things they are not aware of. I didn’t sleep all night… I feel disgusted with what happened.” These words — , one of the Israeli Jews…

  By Sigal Samuel Oct 19, 2015 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Donors Shouldn’t Dictate Young Jews’ Opinions On Israel

  The American Jewish community has a problem. Our institutions — Hillels, Jewish community centers, synagogues, day schools — are increasingly beholden to a group of wealthy donors whose politics are far out-of-line with the majority of the American Jewish community. For instance, though American Jews supported the Iran deal by wide margins, 55 Jewish federations…

  By Caroline Morganti Oct 19, 2015 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  How to talk to your kids about the violence in Israel and Gaza

  Editor’s Note: With Israel and Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip engaged in their most intense battle since their devastating summer-long fighting in 2014, and Israel itself convulsed by Arab-Jewish clashes some are likening to a civil war, we are republishing this essay from a few years ago. It’s just as relevant in May 2021….

  By Sivan Zakai Oct 19, 2015 | 4 min read