Opinion

• Opinion

  At Jew-Centric J Street, Arabs Ask the Best Questions

  Courtesy of J Street For the Jews who attended this year’s J Street Conference, the event was an expression of community, idealism and ideology. In a way, it was about how Israel was all about us, the Jews. It was about our values and our identity, which have been so inextricably intertwined with the state…

  By Lisa Goldman

  3 min read
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  Opinion

  Making Day School Work for Working Parents

  Earlier this year, several Jewish day schools in the northern New Jersey and Manhattan areas announced that they would be starting the 2015–2016 year on September 8 because Labor Day falls late this year. I quickly did some math and discovered that this meant my children would be off for 17 days during the summer,…

  By Tamar Snyder Mar 24, 2015 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  The Anti-Semitism Surge That Isn’t

  You can see how the perception took hold. Two professors from Trinity College who have been studying American Jewish college students for years included a question about anti-Semitism in their latest survey. The results were startling: 54% percent said that they had experienced or witnessed anti-Semitism on campus during the first six months of the…

  Mar 24, 2015 | 4 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 Americans keep getting killed in the West Bank. Here’s how the US could fight that awful trend

  

• Nora Berman First Camp Auschwitz, now Alligator Alcatraz — why the right is obsessed with commodifying brutality

  

• Dan Perry What exactly is going on between Israel and Syria — and is the prospect of peace dead?

  

• Emily Tamkin Zohran Mamdani’s victory proves it: The ‘gotcha’ mode of fighting antisemitism has to go

  

The Latest

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  Opinion

  Of Sabbath Fires, Safety, Hate and Love: A Reply

  It seems some readers saw my Saturday night post about the deadly Brooklyn fire that killed seven children and decided it was a bigoted attack on Orthodox Judaism. In case you missed it, I wrote that this is not the first time Sabbath fires — hotplates, candlesticks — have gotten out of control and killed…

  By J.J. Goldberg Mar 23, 2015 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  A Value Divide

  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s last few days of campaigning impressed Israeli Jews and American Jews alike, but in quite different ways. According to most accounts, Netanyahu’s pledge of no Palestinian state under his watch, coupled with his call to Israeli Jews to run to the ballot boxes to counteract the drove of Arab Israeli voters…

  By Michael Barnett Mar 23, 2015 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Want To Fight the Occupation After Bibi’s Victory? Here’s How.

  Activists from Center for Jewish Nonviolence replant trees on the Nassar family farm / Courtesy Nothing has more depressed American Jewish progressives than the recent revelation that Israel will be facing four more years of Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu’s renewed reign spells continued rancor between the two countries American Jewish progressives care about. It means more…

  By Elisheva Goldberg Mar 23, 2015 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Israeli Left Splits on Tactics at J Street Conference

  J Street / Facebook Speaking at a press conference on the margins of the J Street national convention today, a group of left-wing Knesset members split over the role they’d like American Jews to play in American diplomacy, particularly at the United Nations. Responding to a reporter’s question, Zionist Union lawmakers Yoel Hasson and Ksenia…

  By J.J. Goldberg Mar 23, 2015 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  Stop Using Brooklyn Fire To Stoke Anti-Orthodox Hatred

  An Orthodox man looks at the scene of the fire in Midwood, Brooklyn / Getty Images You never want Shabbat to end on a tragic note. Yet among the the rush of messages that blipped across my phone when I turned it on Saturday night was news of the death of seven children in Brooklyn’s…

  By Mordechai Lightstone Mar 23, 2015 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  A Deadly Plague of Shabbat Fires

  The Sabbath fire that killed seven children in an Orthodox Jewish family in Brooklyn on Saturday was at least the fourth deadly blaze in the borough resulting from Sabbath and holiday observance in the past 15 years. In all 11 people have been killed in the four fires, all but one of them children. At…

  By J.J. Goldberg Mar 22, 2015 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  The Value of Shutting Up and Listening

  In my previous column, I wrote about how a revival in Jewish education, one with a low bar for entry, is essential to maintaining our tradition in a world where the superficial trappings of religion — all dream catchers and menorahs — are replacing deeper meaning and understanding. Creating the infrastructure for this requires an…

  By Elissa Strauss Mar 21, 2015 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Why Did Benjamin Netanyahu Win? He’s Been Good for Israelis.

  The fact that Benjamin Netanyahu looms so large over Israeli politics is a mystery to Israel’s friends and foes alike. If you believe what the media tell you, Netanyahu is routinely on the wrong side of history, refusing to make peace with the Palestinians, all too ready to go to war with Hamas, dangerously sparring…

  By David Rosenberg Mar 20, 2015 | 4 min read