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
Stop Trying To Steal Bernie Sanders’s Red Flag — and Mine
In the spring of 1968 I had a transformative experience that changed my self-awareness as a Jew and an American. I’ve been thinking about that moment a lot since Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign turned serious — and especially since the story of his kibbutz connection has gotten him slammed as a communist. I was spending…
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Letters Synagogues and Independent Congregations Are Allies, Not Enemies
I’m grateful to the Forward for reprinting the JTA story about the , a new partnership of communities that is attracting the young and unaffiliated. It is a great story, and there is one nuance I would like to lift up. While the tempting story to tell is one that links the declining synagogue affiliation…
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Opinion Would Talmudic Rabbis Approve of Hillary Clinton’s Wall Street Money?
During the Democratic presidential debate on the night of February 4, Hillary Clinton said to Bernie Sanders: “If you have something to say, say it.” She was referring to Sanders’s repeated indication that Clinton has compromised herself by taking money from Wall Street. Sanders did not answer directly, but he wasn’t dodging. He understood that…
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Opinion We Need To Out Bernie Sanders as a Jew — for His Own Good
Bernie Sanders is marching through his presidential campaign with a giant target on his back: his Jewishness. Unless the Democratic candidate begins to more publicly admit his Jewish identity (even though he doesn’t practice Judaism as a religion), it will become a huge vulnerability. If nominated, he will leave the Democratic Party susceptible to ugly…
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Opinion Israeli Opposition’s Plan for Jerusalem Makes No Sense. Here’s a Better Idea.
Israeli opposition leader Isaac Herzog has announced that, since a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not currently viable, Israel should take unilateral steps to manage the conflict. These steps include cutting off a number of Palestinian neighborhoods from East Jerusalem. “Then we’ll reunite the true Jerusalem, without hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, who…
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Opinion How Jewish Would a Bernie Sanders Presidency Be?
Bernie Sanders is the first Jew to win a presidential primary in New Hampshire, or in any other state. If he should go on to secure the Democratic nomination, and if he should then win the general election, he will have upended conventional wisdom by bringing a long-shot, socialist campaign all the way from Brooklyn…
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Opinion Why Does Israel’s Liberal Opposition Leader Say There’s No Prospect of a Peace Deal?
Israel’s Knesset gave preliminary approval February 9 to a controversial bill aimed at shaming human rights organizations that get funding from foreign governments. The bill, a top priority of Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition, requires not-for-profits getting more than half their budgets from foreign governments — mostly European — to post a warning of their foreign links…
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Opinion My Memories of Nino Scalia, the Most Jewish Gentile on the Supreme Court
(JTA) — “When there was no Jewish justice on the Supreme Court,” Antonin “Nino” Scalia told me, “I considered myself the Jewish justice.” After Abe Fortas resigned in May 1969, there would be no Jewish justice on the court for nearly a quarter of a century, until President Bill Clinton named Ruth Bader Ginsburg to…
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Opinion How Will Antonin Scalia’s Death Affect 2 Cases of Jewish Interest?
When Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia — likely one of the most influential justices to ever sit on the Court — was found dead at the age of 79, the news sent shockwaves through the country. His death has significant implications for the cases currently on the Supreme Court’s docket. The remaining eight justices frequently…
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Opinion We Need Mahmoud Abbas — But Let’s Not Give Him Carte Blanche
Israel and its supporters are being held hostage by the notion that Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, is all that we have on the Palestinian side and that any successor would be far worse. The right’s response to this is either that there isn’t a hair’s breadth of difference between Abbas and Fatah…
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Opinion Scalia and Ginsburg’s Powerful Lesson for Jews — Conservative and Liberal Alike
As the token conservative friend for so many people, I believe we can all take a lesson from Antonin Scalia — and the unlikely friendship he enjoyed with Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It’s hard for some to believe that the Notorious RBG, as she’s called by her liberal fan base, would vacation and often ring in…
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Fast Forward 200+ Bnei Menashe immigrate to Israel from India, the first to make the journey in years
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Yiddish װאָס קען מען זיך אָפּלערנען פֿון מאָלי קראַבעפּלס בוך װעגן „בונד“?What can we learn from Molly Crabapple’s book about the Bund?
דאָס בוך איז גרונטיק געפֿאָרשט, לעבעדיק אָנגעשריבן — אָבער אידעאָלאָגיש באַפֿאַרבט
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Sports Today’s American Jews finally have their era’s Sandy Koufax
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Fast Forward Netanyahu reveals prostate cancer treatment, says he hid diagnosis during Iran war