Opinion

• Opinion

  When Israel’s Chickens Come Home to Poop

  The policies of Israel’s longest-serving prime minister are starting to bear an eerie resemblance to climate change: The critics all look like a bunch of whining scaremongers prophesying an implausibly apocalyptic ruination that’s sure to come in some fuzzily distant end-time. Even if it’s true, it’s too far away to worry about. That is, until…

  By J.J. Goldberg

  5 min read
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  Opinion

  That Time Yehuda Glick Was My Tour Guide

  Rabbi Yehuda Glick / Tumblr The first time I met Rabbi Yehuda Glick, I thought he seemed completely normal. I never would have thought to call him a right-wing extremist, as many reports are doing nowadays. And I certainly never would have dreamed that a few years later he would be the target of an…

  By Rachel Delia Benaim Oct 30, 2014 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Make Fort Kent, Maine, Famous? It Takes Ebola.

  Our man in Maine has some words of wisdom for the reporters who are covering the story of the nurse who was quarantined over fears of Ebola. Go to Doris’s Cafe and grab the $1.90 French toast breakfast./Josh Nathan-Kazis Kaci Hickox, the nurse quarantined over fears she contracted Ebola, has done the impossible: She’s made…

  By Josh Nathan-Kazis Oct 30, 2014 | 2 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 is Neil Diamond’s Next Hit?

  Something for everyone! Neil Diamond meets Bette Midler meets a 3-D printer and even pork in this week’s new quiz. Getty Images

  By Lenore Skenazy Oct 29, 2014 | < 1 min read
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  Opinion

  Young Israelis Say No to Separate Buses

  An Israeli soldier walks past a bus on which suspected Jewish vandals painted graffiti reading ‘Gentiles in the land are enemies’ / Getty Images Young Israelis don’t want separate bus lines for Palestinians — and they’re asking American Jews to ensure segregation never becomes a reality. That’s the nutshelled version of a letter sent today…

  By Sigal Samuel Oct 29, 2014 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  How To Say ‘Chickenshit’ in Hebrew

  Thinkstock / Getty Images Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confronted quite a challenge when the Atlantic’s Jeff Goldberg quoted Obama administration officials calling him a “chickenshit.” Israeli reporters, in turn, faced their own challenge: How to translate “chickenshit” into Hebrew. Modern Hebrew is rich with phrases alluding to the Bible and rabbinic literature. Swear words,…

  By Ben Sales Oct 29, 2014 | < 1 min read
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  Opinion

  Why the Mikveh Scandal Cuts So Deep

  The sordid story of the Washington rabbi accused of spying on naked women in his synagogue’s ritual bath is more than just a local scandal, an Orthodox scandal, a conversion scandal. It is a Jewish scandal, tearing deep into the heart of a religious hierarchy that is dominated by men who are rarely held to…

  Oct 29, 2014 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Separate Buses? That’s How Occupation Rolls.

  Getty Images As of next month, Israel will operate separate buses for Palestinian residents of the West Bank returning from jobs as day laborers in Israel, thanks to political pressure from West Bank settlers who donʼt want to ride on the same buses as “Arabs.” The question is: Should we care? Settler leaders claim that…

  By Mira Sucharov Oct 28, 2014 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  What’s New at the Metropolitan Opera?

  Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera Rudy Giuliani, Benjamin Netanyahu and Moses. One of these men is not like the other, and yet here they all get equal time. So does a Top Chef contestant. And so does Bubbie.

  By Lenore Skenazy Oct 28, 2014 | < 1 min read
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  Opinion

  How Barack Obama Refuses To Learn From the Past

  Today’s lesson is about the importance of learning from history. You know what they say: Those who don’t are doomed to repeat it and all that. What they never tell you is how important it is to learn the right lesson. Otherwise you’ll just follow your first mistake with a bigger one. That’s the part…

  By J.J. Goldberg Oct 28, 2014 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  How ‘Klinghoffer’ Stereotypes Both Sides

  “The Death of Klinghoffer” is among the most anti-Israel works of art I’ve experienced in recent years. And yet, it’s so intent on crafting a Cowboys-and-Indians story that it reduces its Palestinians to offensive, Orientalist caricatures. That’s right: This opera isn’t anti-Jewish. It’s anti-Palestinian. Far too much ink has already been spilled on the question…

  By Jay Michaelson Oct 27, 2014 | 4 min read