Opinion

• Opinion

  The Iconic Mideast Photo That Isn’t Fake

  Debbi Cooper’s 1988 photo of an Israeli and a Palestinian actually features an Israeli and a Palestinian. When I interviewed Ricki Rosen about her iconic — and completely staged — 1993 photo depicting a Palestinian boy and an Israeli boy, she reminded me of a similar picture taken by another Jerusalem photojournalist. Debbi Cooper’s 1988…

  By Naomi Zeveloff

  4 min read
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  Opinion

  ‘The Nu Republic’ No More

  How do you say kaddish for a magazine that lived to be 100 years old? Because that is precisely what many fans of The New Republic are doing, as well as engaging in the more of-this-world-ly act of cancelling their subscriptions. By now, everyone in the literary world and blogosphere is aware of what has…

  By Jeffrey K. Salkin Dec 8, 2014 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  How Israel Treats African ‘Infiltrators’

  The new Anti-Infiltration Law presented by the Israeli government, after two previous iterations of the law have been voided by the High Court, is the culmination of the development of a completely unreasonable government policy toward the foreigners from Africa. Government officials and members of Knesset keep referring to Sudanese and Eritreans as “work infiltrators”…

  By Yehuda Bauer Dec 8, 2014 | 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 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

  Eric Garner and Moshe Twersky Bound by History

  Getty Images As I sit at my desk in a modern office building in lower Manhattan, the chants of angry protestors below grow louder. “I — can’t — breathe,” they shout, echoing the haunting final words of Eric Garner, whose death by asphyxiation I saw on video the day it occurred. It was in that…

  By Phil Getz Dec 7, 2014 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Farewell Philologos

  Week in and week out, for 24 years, the person known as Philologos has graced our pages with an erudite, engaging and often surprising column about language. About Yiddish, English and Hebrew, French, Polish, Latin and Greek, Aramaic and Circassian and just about any other tongue humans have spoken. Ostensibly, Philologos answered readers questions about…

  By Jane Eisner Dec 6, 2014 | < 1 min read
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  Opinion

  Netanyahu Might Lose Election. Here’s How.

  If the pre-election polls out of Israel teach us anything, it’s about the strength and weakness of pre-election polls. The strength is that they’re a pretty accurate reflection of what people are thinking. The proof of this is that the flood of polls coming every day from just about every media outlet, right, left and…

  By J.J. Goldberg Dec 6, 2014 | 8 min read
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  Opinion

  How Elections Allow Leaders To Ignore Real Issues — in Israel and America

  Election season: It’s just ended in America, just beginning in Israel. This seems the right moment to examine the striking parallels between the two countries’ political systems, and see if we can’t draw some useful lessons. Conventional wisdom says they’re poles apart. Most obviously, Israel has a dozen parties touting every possible mix of positions…

  By J.J. Goldberg Dec 5, 2014 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Huge Israeli Arms Buy Nobody’s Talking About

  The F-35 fighter jet is Israel’s latest big purchase / Wikipedia The Israeli parliament has become a turbulent place in the past few weeks — even more so than usual. What with key politicians getting fired, there’s been lots of chatter about what this shake-up will mean for the Israel-U.S. relationship. But it may not…

  By Yael Even Or Dec 5, 2014 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  I Don’t Want To Feel ‘Safe’ at Eric Garner’s Expense

  A demonstrator cries while protesting the Eric Garner grand jury decision / Getty Images (JTA) — The words of Leviticus (19:6) admonish us not to “stand idly by while the blood of your neighbor is shed.” These words should sting our ears and shock our conscience in the wake of a Staten Island grand jury’s decision…

  By Ayelet Cohen Dec 4, 2014 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Boycotting a Moses Named Christian in ‘Exodus’

  Charlton Heston as Moses. Johnny Depp as Tonto. Mickey Rooney as Mr. Yunioshi. Laurence Olivier as Othello. Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra. All white actors who have played non-white characters on the big screen. And now Christian Bale has joined their ranks, playing Moses in Ridley Scott’s upcoming biblical blockbuster, “Exodus.” The film, which tells the…

  By Sigal Samuel Dec 4, 2014 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Be Fruitful and Multiply — Please?

  Thanksgiving was lovely this year, a happy gathering of four generations of family. We are a warm and compatible group who genuinely enjoy each other’s company and — not to sound too corny here — acknowledge the blessing of just being together. There is a sturdiness to this side of my family that I treasure….

  By Jane Eisner Dec 4, 2014 | 3 min read