Opinion

• Opinion

  Copenhagen Terror Stole My Friend Dan Uzan

  Copenhagen’s slain synagogue guard, Dan Uzan / Facebook As I struggle to wrap my mind around the horrible attacks that terrorized my city, Copenhagen, this weekend, all I can see is a memory from a few years ago. I was attending Tuesday night practice at the local Jewish soccer club, Hakoah Copenhagen. Thinking myself rather…

  By David Jano

  4 min read
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  Opinion

  It’s Tough To Walk Around Paris as a Jew — Or Is It?

  An Israeli journalist who walked around Paris for hours while wearing a kippah to test attitudes to Jews documented multiple threats and insults hurled at his direction. Zvika Klein, a reporter for the news site nrg.co.il and the Makor Rishon daily, on Sunday released the footage from his excursion last week around Paris and its…

  By Anne Cohen Feb 17, 2015 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  Start Birthright With Younger Teens

  Taglit-Birthright Israel is a truly remarkable invention of contemporary Jewry. The offer of a cost-free 10-day trip to Israel — conceived of as the “birthright” of every Jewish young person — has brought hundreds of thousands of college-aged Jews to Israel. Research by Len Saxe and his colleagues at Brandeis University’s Cohen Center for Modern…

  By Steven M. Cohen Feb 17, 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 Oh, great, Elon Musk’s antisemitic AI is about to ride shotgun in my Tesla

  

• 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

  Stop LOL-ing at My ‘Crazy Jewish Mom’

  Photo from “Crazy Jewish Mom” on Instagram I have a Jewish mom. You have a Jewish mom. Heck, I am a Jewish mom. And I might be crazy. But it’s not because I’m Jewish. Last November, Kate Siegel decided to create an Instagram account called “Crazy Jewish Mom” in order to share private iMessages from…

  By Rebecca Einstein Schorr Feb 16, 2015 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  What Will Prevent Another Copenhagen?

  Je Suis Copenhagen meme via Twitter The worst part of this weekend’s horrifying terrorist attack in Copenhagen is, of course, that it happened at all, and resulted in the deaths of a young man guarding a synagogue and a film director attending a free-speech event. The second-worst part is that there is no reason it…

  By Jay Michaelson Feb 15, 2015 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Canada’s ‘Fox News North’ Shuts Amid Losses

  With its audience shrinking and losses mounting, a Canadian TV news network known for its pro-Israel views – and right-of-center politics – has pulled the plug after four years. Sun News Network, whose firebrand stances on hot-button issues earned it the sobriquet “Fox News North,” went dark this morning. The channel liked to claim it…

  By Michael Kaminer Feb 13, 2015 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  Why Raif Badawi Matters to the Jews

  On January 9, Raif Badawi, a young Saudi man who is a self-declared “liberal,” was brought in front of a mosque in Jeddah and lashed 50 times with a cane. This is only the first part of the excruciating sentence he received: 1,000 lashes altogether and 10 years in prison. His crime? Using the Internet…

  By Debbie Hall Feb 13, 2015 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  When Bob Simon’s Jewishness Nearly Killed Him

  Getty Images Journalist Bob Simon, who died last night in a car accident, had a brush with death almost 25 years earlier. As a prisoner of the Iraqis, during the first Persian Gulf War, he worried “his Jewishness might cost him his life,” JTA reported in this 1991 article: CBS News correspondent Bob Simon was…

  By Julie Wiener Feb 12, 2015 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  Does Brian Williams Punishment Fit ‘Crime’?

  (JTA) — By now, anyone interested enough to have read about the issue knows the basic facts: Longtime NBC anchor Brian Williams lied about having been on a helicopter that was shot down in Iraq in 2003. In truth, he was on a different helicopter that landed unimpeded about a half hour after the other chopper…

  By Uriel Heilman Feb 12, 2015 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  The Eruv Dividing Church and State in the Hamptons

  America’s most famous eruv is back in the news — and this time, not simply as the butt of a joke on Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show.” In early January, a federal appeals court issued a key ruling concluding that erecting an eruv in Westhampton Beach, New York, would not violate the First Amendment. This…

  By Michael A. Helfand Feb 12, 2015 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Why Losing Jon Stewart Hurts the Middle East

  Jon Stewart and Bassem Youssef on “The Daily Show” / Youtube Jon Stewart quitting “The Daily Show” is bad for the Jews. It’s bad for the Muslims. It’s bad for the entire Middle East. If you want to know why, just watch this clip of the real Jon Stewart joking around with “Egypt’s Jon Stewart,”…

  By Sigal Samuel Feb 11, 2015 | 2 min read