Opinion

• Opinion

  Grappling With God’s Wrathful Side

  Godology is a monthly conversation between *Forward columnist Elissa Strauss and Rabbi Scott Perlo in which they explore what it means to be “Godish” — to kind of, sort of, believe in God. SCOTT: Elissa, I think that most people take it as an article of faith that the angry “Old Testament God,” as some…

  By Elissa Strauss and Scott Perlo

  4 min read
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  Opinion

  Preparing to Fast and Shpiel

  It must be embroidered on a sampler somewhere: “Before Jews party, they should suffer a little.” Thus, we fast the day before Purim. Purim is, hands down, the biggest party of the Jewish year. Forget fall’s Simchat Torah, with its sips of single malt, THIS is the Big Megillah and we’re supposed to get trashed….

  By Abigail Pogrebin Mar 3, 2015 | 5 min read
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  Opinion

  The Real Existential Threat Is Not Iran. It’s Bibi.

  Getty Images / Lior Zaltzman On the eve of his departure to Washington this week, Benjamin Netanyahu told the Israeli press assembled on the airport tarmac that he had a “sacred duty” to do everything in his power to protect Israel and the Jewish people from existential threats. As Netanyahu has said nearly every time…

  By Lisa Goldman Mar 2, 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 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

  

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  Opinion

  Bibi Should Speak to Congress — and We Should Listen!

  Getty Images / Lior Zaltzman Despite all the chatter to the contrary, it’s important for Netanyahu to speak before Congress tomorrow — and we should all hear him out. For those of us who don’t yet see why — who focus too much on protocol and politics and L’Affaire Boehner and so may have missed…

  By David Hazony Mar 2, 2015 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  4 Questions for Benjamin Netanyahu

  Getty Images (JTA) — Dear Prime Minister Netanyahu: As American Jewish progressive Zionists, we are deeply worried about the threat that a nuclear-armed Iran would pose to Israel. We know you would like pro-Israel Jews to publicly defend your positions on Iran and your plans to speak to Congress next week. But we need some…

  By Gideon Aronoff and Dan Fleshler Mar 1, 2015 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Defending Lord Sinderby

  I write in support of Lord Sinderby. Surely you’ve seen his character on “Downton Abbey”: more dour than Carson the butler, more rigid than Lord Grantham, Sinderby is a self-made Jew who is implacably opposed to his son’s marriage to a non-Jew. On the very morning of the wedding in a registry (no church or…

  By Jane Eisner Mar 1, 2015 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  Thank You, Hillel, for Opening the Door

  More than a year ago, Hillel President Eric Fingerhut declared that “‘anti-Zionists’ will not be permitted to speak using the Hillel name or under the Hillel roof, under any circumstances.” That statement came in response to the decision by Jewish students at Swarthmore College to open their doors to speakers and groups that oppose Israel’s…

  By Ben Winter Feb 27, 2015 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  Benjamin Netanyahu’s Iran Exaggerations Now Clear for All To See

  Say what you will, the latest intelligence leak to hit the world headlines couldn’t have come at a worse time for Benjamin Netanyahu. Just a week before the Israeli prime minister’s congressional address on the Iranian nuclear threat, a document from his own spy agency turns up and shows that his dark warnings about Iran…

  By J.J. Goldberg Feb 27, 2015 | 5 min read
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  Opinion

  One More Charity Scandal on Loeb & Troper’s Watch

  Illustration by Forward staff Earlier this week, the Forward ran my story on a small New York accounting firm that audits a ton of Jewish charities — including two that have faced recent scandals. A tipster called today to tell me about a third scandal-wracked Loeb & Troper client: YAI, a tremendous New York charity…

  By Josh Nathan-Kazis Feb 27, 2015 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  What’s Eric Fingerhut Doing at a Jerusalem U Event?

  Eric Fingerhut speaks at Jerusalem U film screening / Dorri Olds Trying to get an unbiased education about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a never-ending conundrum. It’s like the parable of the blind men and the elephant — one blind man grabs the tail and says, “An elephant is like a rope,” another feels the trunk…

  By Dorri Olds Feb 26, 2015 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  You Want To Give Every European Jew a Gun — Really?

  Getty Images In an article originally titled “Why Every Jewish Man, Woman, and Child in Europe Should Get a Gun,” Liel Leibovitz claims that European Jews need guns because they can’t trust their governments to protect them from anti-Semitic “savages.” Leibovitz chides those trusting in “reasonable measures,” arguing instead that, “European Jews with guns can…

  By Ryan Rodrick Beiler Feb 26, 2015 | 4 min read