Opinion

• 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…

  By Ilana Sumka

  4 min read
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  Opinion

  Should I Feel Guilty for Worrying About Palmyra’s Stones, When ISIS Slaughters Humans?

  Mere stones broke my heart even as people lost their lives. For so many years, that has been the guilty paradox that plagued my feelings when I thought about the brutality of the Taliban and Al Qaeda and, later, the so-called Islamic State group. Now, with the Syrian Arab Army’s recapture of Palmyra (with help…

  By Larry Cohler-Esses Mar 29, 2016 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  6 Jewish Students Reveal How Israel Debate Colors Campus Life

  When the Forward put out a call for students to tell us about a college experience that had shaped their Jewish identity in some way — good, bad or otherwise — we expected to receive a diversity of responses. And in a way, we did: Students wrote about moments in Mumbai and Johannesburg and Ithaca,…

  By Forward Staff Mar 29, 2016 | 8 min read

Columnists View All

• Alyssa Katz What I learned at a Holocaust survivors’ Purim party

  

• Rob Eshman A gunman attacked a Michigan synagogue. Here’s what happens to the community next

  

• Dan Perry Israelis and Americans deserve to know why they are still at war

  

• Emily Tamkin We must rewrite the rulebook for fighting antisemitism — or conspiracists like Joe Kent will win the narrative wars

  

• Jay Michaelson Antisemitism is exploding on the right but the Jewish establishment is focused on the left

  

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  Opinion

  How Can Israel End ‘Jewish Privilege’ When Most Citizens Believe They Deserve It?

  A little-discussed finding in the reveals that while 79% of Arabs “say there is a lot of discrimination against Muslims in Israel,” only “21% of Israeli Jews” see things this way. Yet 79% of Israeli Jews say that they (the Jews) “deserve preferential treatment.” So there’s a paradox. Jews want the system to discriminate in…

  By Mira Sucharov Mar 28, 2016 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  The Israeli Left Needs To Rethink Its Attitude Toward Settlers

  My daughter Aviv recently walked into a public bathroom and found a Palestinian cleaner at work, humming to herself. Suddenly, a voice from within one of the stalls cried out in rage: “You’re singing, huh? Probably celebrating the terror attack in Istanbul!” The Palestinian woman did not respond. Then, from the stall: “I’ll burn you…

  By Yoav Peck Mar 28, 2016 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Why Jews of Color Like Me Feel Unsafe After AIPAC’s Applause for Trump

  When I heard that Donald Trump would be speaking at the AIPAC conference, I hoped that all Jews would recognize him for the racist demagogue that he is and reject him. Instead he gave his speech, delivered his red meat talking points on Israel, and by and large the crowd applauded him. Kippot with Trump’s…

  By Lina Morales Mar 28, 2016 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Who’s To Blame for Israeli Soldier Shooting Downed Palestinian Attacker?

  Israelis were apparently scandalized this past week by a video showing an IDF soldier in Hebron shooting a wounded, incapacitated and unmoving Palestinian who had, a few minutes earlier, attacked another soldier with a knife, wounding him. The video that surfaced on Thursday was taken by a volunteer with the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem….

  By Dahlia Scheindlin Mar 27, 2016 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  AIPAC Now Creepily Resembles the NRA

  As the members of the National Rifle Association gathered in Cincinnati for their annual convention in May 1977, the group superficially resembled the same bunch of hobbyists it had been for most of its century-long history. Two Civil War veterans had founded the NRA in 1871 out of a concern about how few Union soldiers…

  By Samuel G. Freedman Mar 27, 2016 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Can Merrick Garland Make the Supreme Court Talmudic Again?

  Republicans may be defiantly blocking the nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, but behind their public militancy is trembling fear. Failure to add a movement conservative to the vacancy left by Antonin Scalia balances the court so that it is no longer a partisan arm. Either Garland is eventually confirmed, or Republican intransigence…

  By Ari Paul Mar 25, 2016 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  What Brussels Taught This Israeli About Terror — and Tolerance

  It was the end of the summer of 1994 when my family and I left Israel for the Zaventem airport in Brussels. Yitzhak Rabin was prime minister. Murmurs of peace still permeated the air, muddled with the tumult and rise of terror: Muslims praying at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron had been murdered…

  By Lior Zaltzman Mar 24, 2016 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  We Want to Hear Stories of Your Inspiring Rabbi

  Nearly every day, I encounter a rabbi who inspires me. The rabbi with whom I am learning Talmud, my first sustained study of the foundational text. The rabbi who guides her synagogue members to confront end-of-life medical and spiritual issues before the end of their lives. The rabbi who serves Jews and non-Jews alike in…

  By Jane Eisner Mar 24, 2016 | < 1 min read