Opinion

• Opinion

  How Can She Believe in God?

  The Seesaw is a new kind of advice column in which a broad range of columnists will address the real life issues faced by interfaith couples and families. Read the discussion and vote below for what you think is the best response to this particular quandary. You can email your own questions, which will remain…

  4 min read
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  Opinion

  First Relief, Then Tracing the Roots of Bloody Har Nof Attack

  News of terrorist attacks in Israel can strike us in many different ways. For some the first reaction is anguish; for others it’s rage. There are those who look on with mixed feelings, horrified at the bloodshed yet wanting to understand what drives the killers to such crimes. For still others, it’s that very ambivalence…

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

  Anti-Semitism Creeps Into Europe’s Daily Routines

  Ten years ago the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe convened a conference on European anti-Semitism. Last week it met to assess what had happened in the past decade. The signs are not good. While a good part of the meeting was dedicated to official presentations by the participating nations, it was what one…

  By Deborah E. Lipstadt Nov 21, 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

  VIDEO: What’s More Offensive — ISIS Or Israel?

  What do American students hate more: ISIS or Israel? Media personality Ami Horowitz took to the University of California, Berkeley campus to find out — by way of a strange experiment. Hint: It involves flags. The students’ vitriolic reaction to the Israeli flag, as compared to the ISIS flag, is striking. A few caveats, though: First,…

  By Sigal Samuel Nov 20, 2014 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  Showdown Over Nazis at Museum of Jewish Heritage

  Eric Lichtblau and his new book, “The Nazis Next Door.” It’s not often that a museum director gets booed on his own stage. Yet that’s what happened to David Marwell in the auditorium of the Museum of Jewish Heritage in downtown Manhattan, when an event on New York Times reporter Eric Lichtblau’s new book, “The…

  By Josh Nathan-Kazis Nov 20, 2014 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Why Terror Is Different This Time

  Somehow a line has been crossed. The November 18 attack inside a synagogue in the Har Nof neighborhood of Jerusalem feels different, cuts deeper, frightens me more and even angers me more. It is because it was an attack on Jews. In prayer. Please don’t misunderstand. I’m not diminishing the pain and injustice caused by…

  By Jane Eisner Nov 20, 2014 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  How a German Town Duped the Neo-Nazis

  Every year, residents of the small German town of Wunsiedel are forced to deal with thousands of neo-Nazi activists marching in their streets. Rudolf Hess, who was Hitler’s deputy, was buried in the Bavarian town in 1988. Since then, it has been a pilgrimage site for neo-Nazis. Wunsiedel residents tried it all. They protested and…

  By Yael Even Or Nov 19, 2014 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  Having ‘The Talk’ With My Jerusalem Kids

  A six-year-old Israeli boy kisses his mother on his first day of school / Getty Images My daughter’s pre-K is right opposite Jabel Mukaber, where the terrorists who attacked a Jerusalem synagogue yesterday lived. The children were in class watching a video when I picked up my little girl. The pre-K teacher, so poised and…

  By Dasee Berkowitz Nov 19, 2014 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  An Inexcusable Act of Terror in Jerusalem

  There can be no equivocation in condemning today’s terrorist attack in Jerusalem and expressing pure sympathy for the victims, their families and their community. There can be no caveats, no excuses. This brazen slaughter of men at prayer serves no legitimate political purpose other than to dangerously escalate tensions between two people who clearly have…

  Nov 19, 2014 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  Shin Bet Chief: Mahmoud Abbas Isn’t Inciting Terror

  The director of Israel’s Shin Bet domestic security service, speaking in the wake of today’s massacre in a Jerusalem synagogue, told a Knesset committee that Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas “is not interested in terrorism and is not leading [his people] to terrorism. Not even under the table.” His remarks directly contradicted a string of statements…

  By J.J. Goldberg Nov 18, 2014 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  Was Synagogue Terrorist Attack Revenge for Abu Khdeir Killing?

  Getty Images In the wake of the terrorist attack that claimed four lives in Jerusalem’s formerly peaceful Har Nof neighborhood, some are speculating that the bloodbath may have been meant as revenge for the murder of Palestinian teen Mohammed Abu Khdeir by Jewish extremists in July. The father of Yosef Haim Ben-David, the main suspect…

  By Sigal Samuel and Yael Even Or Nov 18, 2014 | 2 min read