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
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…
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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…
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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…
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Opinion Why Rachel Dolezal Story Hits Raw Nerve for Jews
If we needed proof that there is no such thing as local news anymore, the case of Rachel Dolezal provided it. The story of a president of an NAACP chapter and African studies professor essentially building a career around a fabricated ethnic identity – telling the world she was of African-American heritage when she is,…
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Opinion How Birthright Is Failing the Pro-Israel Cause
“So you’re going to support racist nationalism to get a free trip?” That’s the question a college housemate asked me when I returned from Birthright. She had seen the freshly uploaded photos that decorated my Facebook profile that week: my friends and I slathered in clay at the Dead Sea, riding camels in the Negev,…
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Opinion Prison’s Great Kosher Debate Hits ‘Orange Is the New Black’
“While I am heartened that you appreciate the works of Woody Allen and Barbra Streisand, I think you’ve confused cultural Judaism with committed Jewish belief.” So says the Rent-a-Rabbi in OITNB’s season 3, episode 9, tantalizingly titled “Where My Dreidel At.” (If your binge watching hasn’t carried you this far yet, be warned: spoilers ahead!)…
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Opinion Why Right-Wingers Are So Angry That Israel Hasn’t Bombed Iran Yet
Amid all the fuss over Treasury Secretary Jack Lew getting heckled at the Jerusalem Post Conference in New York on June 7, you might have missed the day’s biggest bombshell. I refer to the nasty smackdown that morning between Post columnist Caroline Glick, the poison-pen darling of the pro-Israel far right, and two of the…
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Opinion Henry Waxman, ‘Lobbyist’s Nightmare,’ Is Now a Lobbyist
When Henry Waxman announced in January of 2014 that he would retire from Congress after 40 years of service, he was rightly hailed as one of the most influential liberals, and one of the most skilled legislators, of his generation. Waxman’s list of accomplishments is astonishing – expanding Medicaid, strengthening of the Clean Air Act,…
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Opinion Is Jewish Reaction to Jerusalem Passport Case Opportunistic — or Delusional?
This week’s institutional Jewish responses to the Supreme Court case of Zivotofsky v. Kerry ranged from horrifying to opportunistic to deluded. This is the case, you will recall, of whether a Jerusalem-born American can list “Israel” as his country of birth on his U.S passport. Congress had passed a law mandating that, but the Bush…
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Opinion The Wrong and Right Way to Beat BDS
The movement to boycott, sanction and divest from Israel takes as its inspiration a statement issued in July 2005 by scores of Palestinian civil society groups, calling on their international supporters to adopt tactics similar to those used to mobilize worldwide action against South Africa’s apartheid regime. Who could have predicted that only a decade…
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Opinion From a Jerusalem Boy’s Passport to a President’s Powers
When new parents Naomi and Ari Zivotofsky decided to file suit against the State Department, they were convinced they were acting to strengthen Jewish claims to Jerusalem. Instead, the Supreme Court, in ruling decisively against them on June 8, has revealed that this suit is one that supporters of Israel will likely regret for years…
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In Case You Missed It
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Yiddish װער מעג שפּילן אַ ייִד? אַ סיכסוך אין דײַטשלאַנדWho can play a Jew — A debate in Germany
אין בערלין דעבאַטירט מען פּאָליטישע ענינים דװקא אין טעאַטער — און דאָס הײַפֿל ייִדן אין לאַנד געפֿינט זיך אין צענטער
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Books In three centuries of Southern Jewish life in the Big Easy, no easy way to be Jewish
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Yiddish „קיין שוועדיש רעדט מען נישט!“ — אַ ייִדיש־טאָג בײַם לונדער אוניװערסיטעט ‘No speaking Swedish here!’ — Yiddish Day in Lund University
די 30 אָנטייל־נעמערס זענען געקומען פֿון גאַנץ שװעדן, נאָרװעגיע, פֿינלאַנד און אַנדערע אייראָפּעיִשע לענדער.
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Opinion We’re forgetting the lessons of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire
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