In the Forward’s opinion section, you’ll find analysis and essays from diverse corners of the Jewish world.
To pitch an opinion piece, email our Opinion Editor, Talya Zax.
Opinion
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Opinion
4 Stories from Zochrot Truth Commission On 1948
Palestinians mark the anniversary of the 1948 Nakba or ‘Day of Catastrophe’ / Getty Images Is Israeli society ready to reckon with 1948? On Wednesday, Zochrot, an Israeli organization devoted to raising awareness about the Nakba — when 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled by Jewish forces during Israel’s founding war — held its first…
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Opinion ‘A Split in the Jewish Soul’: Hanukkah Reconsidered
Hanukkah: A heartwarming story about Jew vs. Jew. Come again? Us against us? I thought it was Jew against Greek: Maccabee vs. Antiochus. Most of us grew up with the same idealized story: that Hanukkah celebrates the victory of the underdog-Maccabees in preserving our religion despite the callous Syrian-Greek attempt to quash all Jewish rituals….
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Opinion Beautiful jazzy version of "Ma’oz Tzur" – listen to Alex Bershadsky
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Opinion Longing for the Quiet of Separation in Jerusalem
With the aim of bringing peace to Jerusalem, foreigners often advise the warring natives to seek reconciliation. Speak to each other, study your differences, clarify the disputes and at the end everything will be solved. Rabbi Marc Schneier recently offered such advice in these pages: “To prevent a global conflagration that would be a disaster…
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Opinion No, Judaism Doesn’t Justify CIA Torture
Christian art depicting Jews being tortured in hell Are the Jews somehow to blame for the CIA’s torture of detainees? That’s what some want to know after yesterday’s release of the so-called “CIA Torture Report” by the Senate Intelligence Committee. The CIA is in the business of extracting secrets and then burying them deep in…
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Opinion I’m Jewish and Greek. Who Do I Root for On Hanukkah?
Youth from Ioannina’s Greek community in traditional dress / Haaretz They’ve switched on the window displays on Fifth Avenue, and the trees are for sale on the street corners, so I know I’m about to get asked the question: Do I miss Christmas? It’s a common question for a convert. But, despite a childhood full…
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Opinion Coming to Terms With Death of the Jewish Mainstream
Reading a Jewish newspaper — and writing for one — is often an exercise in masochism. Of course, the Forward has inspiring pieces on the gefilte fish revival and the first female-majority Forward 50. But when you look at the “hard news” and follow the trend lines, it’s easy to feel despair. If you’re a…
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Opinion Must-Watch TV: Obama on ‘The Colbert Report’
Watch the Leader of the Free World make fun of himself, his critics, Fox News and lots more in a hilarious “Colbert Report” appearance. In the following clip, Obama walks on the set “unexpectedly” (he was due to show up a few minutes later for widely advertised interview) and announces that he’s going to do…
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Opinion Bibi’s $40M Settlement Giveaway Blocked
Hours before Israel’s Knesset voted Monday evening to disperse and head to elections, Prime Minister Netanyahu asked the finance committee to approve an “emergency” grant to settlements in the West Bank of some 160 million shekels ($40 million). Netanyahu was acting in his capacity as acting finance minister, following his firing last week of incumbent…
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Opinion 7 Israeli Laws America Should Pass Right Now
Life’s good when you’re floating in the Dead Sea / Thinkstock Avital Burg’s recent post “If America Had Laws Like Israel” imagines an American parallel to Israel’s nation-state bill, and invites the reader to deplore what would happen if this bill became law here in the U.S. Though this probably wasn’t the writer’s intention, the…
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Opinion Is It Kosher To Fake a Photo for Peace?
Photographer Kitra Cahana on the hills overlooking Ramallah / Ed Ou Editor’s Note: The Forward’s story “Iconic Mideast Photo Is a Fake — and Heartbreaking One at That” generated a lot of debate about the ethics of staging photographs. For added insight, we put a few questions to Kitra Cahana, a documentary photojournalist whose work…
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Film & TV The new ‘Superman’ is being called anti-Israel, but does that make it pro-Palestine?
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Fast Forward Tucker Carlson calls for stripping citizenship from Americans who served in the Israeli army
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Music ‘No matter what, I will always be a Jew.’ Billy Joel opens up about his family’s Holocaust history
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Culture She was my Hebrew school bully — and I finally learned what happened to her
In Case You Missed It
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Fast Forward Cuomo blames Mamdani’s young, Jewish and pro-Palestinian voters for his primary loss
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Fast Forward Elon Musk wants your kids to use his chatbot. The same one that praised Hitler.
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Fast Forward Nation’s largest teachers union rejects move to cut ties with ADL
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Culture In this Holocaust story, there are few words, no swastikas, no yellow stars — just movement, passion and empathy
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