Opinion

• Opinion

  Michael Oren vs. The New York Times

  In Michael Oren’s forthcoming book, “Ally,” Israel’s former ambassador to Washington relates numerous surprising displays of hostility toward Israel by American government officials, media figures and others from whom one might expect something different. Our faith in these anecdotes is fostered not just by the fact that Oren was there, on the inside; it’s buttressed…

  By Larry Cohler-Esses

  4 min read
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  Opinion

  What the Pope’s Climate Change Edict Means For Jews

  Today Pope Francis made history. He just published a much anticipated encyclical on the environment, called Laudato Si’ (Praised Be). This is the first time that someone who may well be the moral and spiritual leader of the world has made preservation of the environment part of official Catholic moral teaching. Right off the bat…

  By Steve Gutow and Lawrence Troster Jun 18, 2015 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Will ‘Jewish Quarter’ Win Over Egyptians — or Backfire?

  Today is the first day of Ramadan. In the Arab world, that means fasting and praying and post-sunset binging. It also means lots and lots of TV. Among the many soap operas aired around this time each year to entertain Muslims as they break fast, there have been plenty featuring anti-Semitic tropes. Plot lines referencing…

  By Sigal Samuel Jun 18, 2015 | 3 min read

Columnists View All

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

  

• Jay Michaelson American Jews were played — now what?

  

• Rob Eshman I have the answer to Jon Stewart’s toughest question about Israel

  

• Nora Berman ‘Eddington’ is full of conspiracy theories but it’s not about Jews. Or is it?

  

• Dan Perry Recognizing a Palestinian state is a great way to doom Palestinians

  

• Emily Tamkin Is starvation in Gaza really Israel’s fault? The facts are clear

  

The Latest

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  Opinion

  The Jewish Leadership We Need

  I’ve been part of a dozen Jewish leadership initiatives. Some have been excellent, others were gigantic wastes of time and money. But I wonder if we should move beyond “leadership” in the Jewish community, to value those idiosyncratic and introverted traits that don’t make for good leaders, traits that leaders themselves may not possess.** Recently…

  By Jay Michaelson Jun 18, 2015 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  3 Jewish Lessons on Rachel Dolezal and Caitlyn Jenner

  I’ll start with an old joke. Mr. Rosenbaum enjoys cooking a steak on his outdoor barbecue grill every Friday afternoon, for his family’s Sabbath meal. But because he is the only Jew in a very Catholic neighborhood, the smell of the cooking meat drives his neighbors — who are forgoing meat on Fridays during Lent…

  By Jane Eisner Jun 18, 2015 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Why Michael Oren’s Blame Game on Israel Is So Wrongheaded

  Every so often an idea or phrase enters the public square in a way that changes the discourse, often for the worse, sometimes dangerously so. Example: Michael Oren’s wrongheaded June 15 op-ed essay in The Wall Street Journal, “How Obama Abandoned Israel.” It’s not easy to say this. Oren is a distinguished historian who writes…

  By J.J. Goldberg Jun 17, 2015 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  How Rachel Dolezal Crossed Line From Solidarity to Slumming

  A few years after graduating from college, when I was living in the racially mixed Chicago suburb of Oak Park, I played pick-up basketball at the local YMCA. Among the regulars was another young white man, who habitually augmented his gym gear with knee-high tube socks striped with red, green and black, the colors of…

  By Samuel G. Freedman Jun 17, 2015 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  What Can Women of the Upper East Side Teach Us About Gender Roles?

  Marketed like a cross between “Gossip Girl” and “The Feminine Mystique,” Wednesday Martin’s new “Primates of Park Avenue” is a quasi-anthropological tell-all about navigating the world of housewifery on Manhattan’s Upper East Side and its discontents. Martin, a self-described “cultural critic at large in high heels,” gives us a window into the highly competitive, and…

  By Elissa Strauss Jun 16, 2015 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  What My Black Jewish Son Teaches Me About Rachel Dolezal

  (Kveller via JTA) — It’s the No. 1 trending topic on Twitter and currently burning up other social media as well: Rachel Dolezal, who resigned on Monday as president of the Spokane chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and who teaches African-American studies at Eastern Washington University, has allegedly been…

  By Alina Adams Jun 16, 2015 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Israeli Theater Is Having Its ‘Klinghoffer’ Moment

  Last year, a new production of caused so much controversy that its broadcast was cancelled. The famous opera is based on the hijacking of a plane by the Palestinian Liberation Front and the murder of Leon Klinghoffer, a Jewish-American passenger in 1985. Now, an Israeli-Arab play, “A Parallel Time,” is causing a similar controversy. Israeli…

  By Lior Zaltzman Jun 15, 2015 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  What Flag Should Yiddish Fly?

  In mid-2012, I received a friend request from “Yiddish Flag,” a fictional image that purported to be the flag of Yiddish language and culture. Not in the habit of accepting requests from anonymous non-humans, I clicked “reject” without a second thought. Yet the flag, a black-and-white banner featuring a menorah on a stylized tallis (prayer…

  By Sebastian Schulman Jun 15, 2015 | 4 min read