Opinion

• Letters

  To Accept or Not to Accept the Iran Deal

  Many provisions of the proposed nuclear agreement with Iran are not satisfactory, which leads to the conclusion that the agreement itself is unacceptable. The most important issue is totally intolerable – namely, the proposed 10- to 15-year duration of the agreement. For some reason, opponents of the agreement don’t put this at the top of…

  2 min read
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  Opinion

  Time To Save Iraq’s Treasures — By Force, If Necessary

  (JTA) — Seeing that no one was investigating the looting of Iraq’s National Museum in the wake of Saddam Hussein’s fall, Col. Matthew Bogdanos put the Marines under his command on the job. A first-generation Greek American with a master’s degree in classical history, Bogdanos appreciates cultures that value their history and preserve their antiquities….

  By Ben Sales Sep 4, 2015 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  Why Barack Obama Still Faces Uphill Battle To Avoid Iran Deal Veto

  Now that President Obama has more than the 34 Senate votes needed to uphold a veto and save the Iran nuclear deal, the fight has moved to another, less critical but highly symbolic threshold: winning over 41 senators to filibuster the Senate approval/disapproval vote. That would block the upper chamber from voting on the Iran…

  By J.J. Goldberg Sep 3, 2015 | 6 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 My brother-in-law’s kibbutz weathered Oct. 7. Then came the Iranian missile strikes

  

• Nora Berman Zohran Mamdani is right about what ‘intifada’ means — well, kind of

  

• 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

  No, God Is Not Punishing Jimmy Carter for ‘Anti-Semitism’

  (JTA) — Former President Jimmy Carter, 90, recently announced he has cancer that has spread to his brain. For some Jews (and evangelical Christians), the cause apparently is obvious. No, it’s not his genetic makeup, or the spread of a mass from his liver to his brain. It’s divine punishment for his behavior toward the…

  By Uriel Heilman Sep 3, 2015 | < 1 min read
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  Opinion

  5 Ways for Barack and Bibi To Get Along Better

  (JTA) — Now that enactment of the Iran nuclear deal appears to be a sure thing, the profound and often personal disagreement between President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over Iran is not about to go away. In the contemplative spirit of the Days of Awe, we canvassed the experts to recommend…

  By Ron Kampeas Sep 3, 2015 | 5 min read
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  Letters

  Elijah Became a Bar Mitzvah Whether He Marked the Occasion or Not

  In response to Neal Pollack’s article The beauty of Judaism is that Elijah became bar mitzvah when he turned 13, whether he chose to mark the occasion with an aliyah or a celebration or not, just as he will be old enough to vote, drink or drive when he reaches those chronological milestones whether or…

  Sep 2, 2015 | < 1 min read
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  Opinion

  Are Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump Flip Sides of Same Populist Coin?

  Bernie Sanders insists he’s nothing like his fellow insurgent-outsider, Donald Trump. He’s half right. On one hand, it may be true that Sanders differs from Trump, as he told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell on August 31, in that he avoids “demagoguery” and “racist attacks” and tries instead to “talk about the reality facing the American people.”…

  By J.J. Goldberg Sep 2, 2015 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  4 Dramas Exposed by the Forward’s Interview With President Obama — Real and Fake

  Jane Eisner’s brings into relief no fewer than four separate dramas that have come to a head in the last year — three real, one fake. The fake one is the so-called crisis in U.S.-Israel relations. Here I agree fully with both the President and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: Disagreement over the Iran deal…

  By David Hazony Sep 1, 2015 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Israeli Comedy Has a Blackface Problem

  On August 10 an Israeli stand-up trio named “Ma Kashur” of themselves dressed up as Ethiopian Jews rapping about racism. Ostensibly, the video was meant to highlight the Ethiopian anti-racism protests that swept through the country earlier this year. But there was a troubling aspect to it. Why were they wearing blackface, when they could…

  By Seth J. Frantzman Sep 1, 2015 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Visiting Auschwitz? Enjoy a Cool ‘Mist’ Shower

  You thought selfies at Auschwitz were bad? Well, we can top that. Or at least, the caretakers of the Auschwitz concentration camp museum can. Meir Bulka, 48, visited Auschwitz-Birkenau this Sunday and was surprised to see these showers, spraying mist at the overheated visitors. “Showers” placed at Auschwitz entrance http://t.co/VS7s1WcHX5 pic.twitter.com/rzlQJdpksh — Ynetnews (@ynetnews) August…

  By Lior Zaltzman Aug 31, 2015 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  The Choose-Your-Own-Adventure High Holidays Prayer Book

  At the Central Conference of American Rabbis, we have to wrestle with the question “What does it mean to be Jewish in America today?” beyond the theoretical. In our charge is the basic structure and tone of worship for the largest group of Jews in the country, the Reform Movement. And when we took a…

  By Hara Person Aug 31, 2015 | 3 min read