Opinion

• Opinion

  A Threat to Israel in America’s Cuba Policy?

  Obama is caricatured as Che Guevara, an iconic symbol of Cuba’s revolution, on the cover of Brazilian magazine Veja / Getty Images As a life-long Democrat, I was deeply disturbed by the Obama Administration’s decision to act unilaterally on the Cuban question. The policy option may have been a valid one, but the process invoked…

  By Steven Windmueller

  3 min read
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  Opinion

  How To Be a Modern Maccabee Without Getting Arrested

  Illustration by Lior Zaltzman Despite having nearly no religious significance, Hanukkah stands out as an important cultural event for American Jewry. American gentiles view it as the quintessential Jewish holiday, mostly due to its calendar proximity to Christmas and its inclusion on holiday TV programs. Jewish symbols featured in ads are used to get the…

  By Mitchel Davidovitz Dec 22, 2014 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Enough With the Menorah Selfies Already!

  Illustration by Lior Zaltzman A friend of mine on Facebook joked, “Can you fulfill pirsumei nisa (the commandment to publicize the Hanukkah miracle) by posting pictures of your menorah online?” It’s a fun, quasi-halachic question that juxtaposes an ancient commandment with contemporary technology. But it’s also a reflection of how much amateur photography has become…

  By Jay Michaelson Dec 22, 2014 | 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

  News Quiz: What New Law Did President Obama Pass?

  Getty Images Latkes, new laws, Hillary Clinton and tri-sexuals. Some weeks are just weirder than others, even for Jews.

  By Lenore Skenazy Dec 22, 2014 | < 1 min read
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  Opinion

  How David Grossman Grieves

  This past year saw the publication in English of the renowned Israeli author David Grossman’s latest book, “Falling Out of Time.” It’s a sustained meditation on grief told as an allegory and mostly in verse — a book filled with the raw emotion that Grossman feels every day over the loss of his son, Uri,…

  By Gal Beckerman Dec 22, 2014 | 5 min read
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  Opinion

  How To Survive One of the Longest Nights Ever

  Wikipedia If ever there was a good night to light Hanukkah candles, it’s tonight — one of the longest nights in human history. No, that’s not a figure of speech. It is literally one of the longest nights Earth has ever seen! You may already know that December 21-22 is the winter solstice, the longest…

  By Sigal Samuel Dec 21, 2014 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  Spies Spar in Shin Bet-Mossad Turf War

  Tensions continue to mount between Israel’s Shin Bet domestic security agency and the country’s other two intelligence services, the Mossad foreign intelligence agency and the military intelligence directorate of the Israel Defense Forces. So reports military correspondent Amir Rapoport in the Friday edition of the center-right daily Maariv. It’s a messy tangle, even by the…

  By J.J. Goldberg Dec 21, 2014 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Israeli Politics Enters Silly Season as Elections Loom

  Israel’s snap parliamentary elections are just three months away, but the campaign is still stuck in the doldrums. You might call it the silly season. The parties in the outgoing Knesset have received their first round of public campaign funding and started flailing away at each other, but nobody knows yet which ones will be…

  By J.J. Goldberg Dec 21, 2014 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  ‘Serial’ Ends With Nod to Jewish Prof

  Illustration by Lior Zaltzman (JTA) — No spoilers here about the “Serial” season finale, but I will say this much: The episode ends with … a special thanks to a certain Jewish studies professor. That would be Benjamin Schreier, the interim director of the Jewish studies program at Penn State and the husband of “Serial”…

  By Gabrielle Birkner Dec 19, 2014 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  Israel Never Would’ve Killed ‘The Interview’ — So Why Did We?

  As a liberal, I generally find American culture to be on testosterone overload. On average, we are a macho, gun-toting, exceptionalist nation that prizes its cowboys and cops. Generally speaking, this is more true the more conservative a place you’re in, but it permeates the culture, with its exhortation to “man up” and its denigration…

  By Jay Michaelson Dec 19, 2014 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Don’t Let North Korea Win Battle of ‘Interview’

  (Reuters) — Moviemakers strive to outdo themselves with fantastic plots, super-heroes and special effects. But the hack of Sony Pictures Entertainment this month proves that, even in Hollywood, reality is still stranger than fiction. U.S. officials have now determined that North Korea was behind the devastating cyber attack. The rogue nation is also linked to the…

  By Kent Harrington Dec 18, 2014 | 3 min read