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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Letters
We Can Do More to Teach Children to Be Part of the Community
Dear Parent: I recently read in the Forward about a father (Neal) whose son has decided not to celebrate his bar mitzvah. There is no question that for many of us and our children the moment on the bima is full of meaning. Reading Torah, teaching a D’var Torah, leading the service. Our children learn…
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Opinion Sympathy for Syrian Refugees — But Not African Asylum Seekers?
The mainstream and Jewish media have both finally raised the world’s refugee crisis to the status it deserves in our news feeds and we, Jewish Americans, cannot help but feel immense sympathy for the Syrian refugees. We want to do whatever we can to help and we should. I have heard of a number of…
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Opinion Why Israel Must Bury Hatchet With U.S. Over Iran — Now
The congressional debate on the Iran nuclear deal is over. President Obama has prevailed. The United States will implement the P5+1 agreement with Iran. Israel will have to live with it. In sharp contrast with Washington, no real public discussion of the deal’s details was ever conducted in Israel. Most of the opposition patriotically sided…
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Letters Four Anguished Questions on the Refugee Crisis
Dear Editor: Lipstadt’s on the moral and political issues concerning policy on the Syrian refugee crisis raises four issues that trouble the author. One of the questions the author asks, is the “extent to which these new immigrants will commit to democratic principles.” This argument was raised several times at a Rosh Hashanah dinner I…
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Opinion Let’s Make Israeli Culture a Uniting Force for Jews Everywhere
Rosh Hashanah is a time for taking stock. We size up that which we have and that which we are lacking, and we try to make out the course corrections we need to close the gap. As I see it, one of the greatest things we have going for us as a people is the…
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Opinion What Shouldn’t We Compare to the Holocaust? A Refugee Crisis, for Starters.
Even if we can’t agree on anything else, there’s one cardinal fact that I think we can all get behind: This has been a summer of intense drama where the Middle East is concerned. Also a summer filled with evocations of the Holocaust. And they’re not unrelated. One reason for the intensity of the drama…
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Opinion Ring In the New Year: Top Tunes to Atone To
This Rosh Hashanah concert began five years ago as a sort of mood piece. I decided last year to expand it and include riffs off of some core elements in the Rosh Hashanah service itself. Some folks have been asking me to repost it, so here it is. You’ll notice that when you click on…
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Opinion Why Refugees’ Plight Is Personal for Me — and All Jews
They come by the thousands now. Day after day, night after night. By sea and overland. They have been coming for far longer than just this summer, but suddenly, in the past few weeks, in their tremendous numbers and their family units, their presence is finally seen. They are body to body in Keleti station…
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Opinion Why There Are Still Only Two Choices in Syria — Bad and Worse
The mysterious visit to Moscow in late July by Iran’s international troublemaker-in-chief, the shadowy head of the feared Quds Force, may just have found an explanation. It’s either terrifying or vaguely reassuring, depending on how you read the Middle East. Specifically, how you feel about the Moscow visit will depend on whom you’d rather see…
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Opinion Did New York Times Flub ‘Jewish’ Iran Vote Chart?
(JTA) — In a chart of lawmakers who are against the Iran deal, The New York Times singled out Jewishness as an implicit cause of opposition to the nuclear agreement. The chart, posted Thursday, originally included a column with the heading “Jewish?” “Yeses” were highlighted in yellow (yellow!), while “noes” were not. Another column showed…
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Opinion Why Are You So Confused by J Street’s Muslim Zionist?
I’ve been watching out for articles about Amna Farooqi, the new Muslim-American President of J Street U, since she was elected last month. There’s more than a little bit of kvelling in that for me, since I taught the first two Israel Studies courses she took at the University of Maryland when she was a…
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Fast Forward His kippah was a symbol of coexistence. Israeli police officers seized and destroyed it.
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News Inside Mamdani’s split decision on synagogue and school protests in NYC
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Culture I come from a long line of Jewish Bundists. Now, Molly Crabapple is part of our family.