Opinion

• Opinion

  A Forward for the Inquisitive Reader

  As I cross the country to visit synagogues, universities and community centers, I am often approached by someone with a wistful smile and a similar story: “I remember when my grandfather would give me a nickel to run down to the corner store and buy the Jewish Forward.” How could I not be moved by…

  By Jane Eisner

  4 min read
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  Opinion

  ‘We Did More Than Just Survive’

  When it was my turn to read the names of Holocaust victims, I couldn’t see them. The print was too small, and my reading glasses were too weak. I was at Congregation B’nai Jeshurun in Manhattan at 10 P.M. last Wednesday night for the annual “Reading and Hearing of the Names” to mark Yom HaShoah…

  By Abigail Pogrebin Apr 19, 2015 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  With That Very First Cut, the Child Is Tamed

  Of all the coming-of-age milestones my 2.5-year-old son has already passed through, none has impacted me quite as much as his first haircut. That first shearing, the transformation of the hair on his head from disordered to ordered, wild to tame, left me, to tell you the truth, despondent. So unsure was I of the…

  By Elissa Strauss Apr 19, 2015 | 3 min read

Columnists View All

• Alyssa Katz What I learned at a Holocaust survivors’ Purim party

  

• Rob Eshman A gunman attacked a Michigan synagogue. Here’s what happens to the community next

  

• Dan Perry Is this Netanyahu’s Winston Churchill moment?

  

• Emily Tamkin We must rewrite the rulebook for fighting antisemitism — or conspiracists like Joe Kent will win the narrative wars

  

• Jay Michaelson Antisemitism is exploding on the right but the Jewish establishment is focused on the left

  

The Latest

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  Opinion

  Don’t Be Shocked by Jewish Honor for Anti-Gay Pastor Charles Stanley

  Here’s why I’m not on board with the growing chorus protesting JNF’s honoring Dr. Charles Stanley, one of the most prominent evangelical leaders in the country, and the former president of the Southern Baptist Convention (membership 15 million). It’s not that he isn’t anti-gay. He is, and I assume he’d be proud to admit it….

  By Jay Michaelson Apr 17, 2015 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  How Novel About Armenian Genocide Became Bestseller in Warsaw Ghetto

  By any measure, the Warsaw Ghetto was hell on earth. An urban prison zone in the middle of German-occupied Warsaw, after November 1940 the ghetto was enclosed by a ten-foot high wall that was topped with barbed wire and tightly guarded. German authorities packed over 400,000 Jews of all ages into an area of just…

  By Edna S. Friedberg Apr 17, 2015 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  England’s Green Party Has an Anti-Semitism Problem

  Getty Images At a forum with voters in February, Green Party leader Natalie Bennett was asked what she would do to ensure that Jews feel safe in Britain. Bennett rambled on vaguely about funding inter-communal dialogue without even mentioning Jews, indicating that the problem of anti-Semitism was one she had never thought about before. The…

  By Liam Hoare Apr 17, 2015 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Divergent Views of the Holocaust Form Root of Tension With Israel

  Once upon a time, decades before the embittered encounters of Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu, an Israeli prime minister decided to publicly humiliate an American president whom he deemed disloyal. The men in question were Menachem Begin and Ronald Reagan, and the immediate cause of their confrontation in 1981 was Israel’s annexation of the Golan…

  By Samuel G. Freedman Apr 16, 2015 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Mom Told Strangers Her Holocaust Secret — But Not Me

  Getty Images One day in 2002, my mother sat down in the living room of her Upper West Side, Manhattan apartment and told her life story to a stranger. The stranger was a volunteer, part of Steven Spielberg’s epic campaign to preserve the life stories of Holocaust survivors. For over three hours the stranger asked…

  By Carol Ungar Apr 16, 2015 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Did Hillary Clinton Steal Hadassah’s Logo?

  Which is Hillary’s logo — and which is Hadassah’s? (JTA) — Critics love to nitpick Hillary Clinton’s personal and policy choices, as they have during the recent email scandal and the Benghazi scandal. This time, however, the critics may have a substantial case against her. As soon as Clinton’s campaign was launched on Sunday, her campaign…

  By Gabe Friedman Apr 15, 2015 | < 1 min read
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  Opinion

  Dear Stanford: Don’t Quiz Me on BDS Because I’m Jewish

  Stanford’s Molly Horwitz, running for student senate, says she faced anti-Semitic questioning I am both a woman of color and a Jew. For much of my life, I struggled to embrace these identities. In high school people told me I was “not a real Latina” while also claiming it was my Hispanic ethnicity that got…

  By Molly Horwitz Apr 15, 2015 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Getting Memory Right: Preparing for Yom HaShoah

  On Holocaust Remembrance Day in 2015, Abigail Pogrebin explained how to make the holiday meaningful year after year. Her message resonates just as strongly today. Tonight I will be reading aloud the names of strangers. The annual “Reading and Hearing of the Names” is coordinated by the JCC in Manhattan in honor of Yom HaShoah…

  By Abigail Pogrebin Apr 15, 2015 | 7 min read