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
As Reconstructionists Accept Rabbis With Non-Jewish Partners, Will Reform Jews Follow Suit?
Moved either by a brave spirit or by the notion that widespread intermarriage in the Jewish faith demands this change, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College recently announced that it is revoking its “Non-Jewish Partner” policy, which denied admission to students married to, or in a committed relationship with, a non-Jew. This decision is likely to have…
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Books Why Secular-to-Orthodox Memoirs Matter
“Writing is a miserable, awful business. Stay with it. It is better than anything in the world.” This quote from Ann Patchett sums up my feelings about writing — and it’s also how I feel about my chosen religious lifestyle. I grew up in a secular Jewish home and, as a young adult, was drawn…
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Opinion Why I Love Article VI — and You Should, Too
When Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson said a couple of weeks ago that he “would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation,” the media spotlight suddenly was trained on a single phrase in Article VI of the United States Constitution. I was thrilled! That brief statement toward the end of…
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Opinion Why Israelis Are Fearing a Third Intifada
First it was clashes on the Temple Mount. Then a mother and father were shot before the eyes of their four children. Then two men were killed in a stabbing attack in Jerusalem’s Old City. Now Israelis fear the wave of conflict will only rise. Here’s why the violence began, how it’s escalated and what…
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Opinion The Alternative Vision of Israeli Security That Netanyahu Refuses To See
Former Israeli military chief of staff Benny Gantz, in his first major policy address since retiring last February, recently presented a Washington audience with what amounted to an alternative vision of Israeli security. Though his tone was understated and at times lighthearted, there was no mistaking his sharp disagreements with his former boss, Prime Minister…
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Opinion Why Judaism is Most Meaningful in Times of Grief
When life is full of ease, spirituality is like cotton candy: fluffy, airy and unserious. It’s easy to mock the privileged, entitled yuppies in their yoga clothes, or the perpetually processing privileged New Agers at their endless, fruitless seminars. Not to mention the reactionary flocks in churches and synagogues, with their absurd, prescientific beliefs. And…
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Opinion What Abbas Was Really Saying at the U.N.
Looked at from one perspective, you couldn’t find a better illustration of the dynamic that’s run Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts into their current ditch than the mudslinging that passed for Palestinian diplomacy at the United Nations at the end of September and the tone-deaf response of Israeli officialdom. From another perspective, though, the September 30 U.N….
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Letters Jews and Catholics In the Era of Pope Francis
Dear Editors; Jews and Catholics befriended each other long before their respective institutional hierarchies conferred permission to do so. Dorothy Day’s, Catholic Worker foundress, closest friends for twenty plus years included: Mike Gold, Judith Malina, Julian Beck and Rayna Simons When my hero Lenny Zakim of ADL in Boston died, half of the congregants at…
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Opinion Solve the Refugee Crisis at Its Source — in Syria
Now, the crisis cannot be ignored. Hundreds of thousands of refugees are pouring out of strife-torn countries, risking their lives in desperate sea crossings and overland treks, crowding train stations and jamming borders, for the uncertain promise of rescue. How could we not cry out, as human beings, as Americans, as Jews? Every nation’s true…
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Opinion Where’s the Orthodox Counterpoint to All Those OTD Books?
Compelling personal essays and well-promoted books by “off the derech” writers — Jews who were raised Orthodox but are currently elsewhere — have become something of a cottage industry. Some of the accounts are somewhat condescending, even cynical, embodiments of the perennial phenomenon of intrepid youth discovering truths to which their parents are lamentably oblivious….
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Opinion What Is the Most Jewish Subway Line?
In a coffee shop in Manhattan’s Washington Heights, I overheard two young men in kippot arguing over which New York City Subway line was “the most Jewish of all.” One young man argued for the A — it goes through Washington Heights, the Village and the Lubavitch heartland of Crown Heights. The other argued for…
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Opinion Greta Thunberg’s Gaza flotilla was never going to help Palestinians
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