Opinion

• 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

  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

Columnists View All

• Alyssa Katz What I learned at a Holocaust survivors’ Purim party

  

• Rob Eshman Gavin Newsom isn’t waffling on Israel — he’s voicing sensible ideas in an era of outrage

  

• Dan Perry Is this Netanyahu’s Winston Churchill moment?

  

• Emily Tamkin We must rewrite the rulebook for fighting antisemitism — or conspiracists like Joe Kent will win the narrative wars

  

• Jay Michaelson Antisemitism is exploding on the right but the Jewish establishment is focused on the left

  

The Latest

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  Opinion

  Why All Jews Should Listen to ‘Serial’

  Illustration by Lior Zaltzman Hello, my name is Lior and I’m a podcast addict. I’ve been streaming “This American Life” for years. I’ve turned podcasts into verbs. No, I can’t answer the phone right now, I’m “Savage Love”-ing. Whenever my husband says “Ok. Alright?” I want to scream “This is Radiolab!” Once I even used…

  By Lior Zaltzman Dec 18, 2014 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  A Most Inspiring Hanukkah at the White House

  By just before 8 o’clock last night, my feet really began to hurt. I was standing at attention, waiting for the President and his wife, wedged between four bearded Haredi men, a woman with very bare shoulders, and several people way taller than me who had their iPhone cameras at the ready and looked as…

  By Jane Eisner Dec 18, 2014 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  News Quiz: Why are Fran Drescher and Marlon Brando in the Same Quiz?

  Getty Images Fran Drescher, Marlon Brando and Meyer Lansky — together at last! And also — at first!

  By Lenore Skenazy Dec 18, 2014 | < 1 min read
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  Opinion

  VIDEO: Barack Obama Welcomes Alan Gross Home

  President Barack Obama trumpeted the release of Alan Gross at the annual White House Hanukkah party. The president said Gross had his strong family and the entire Jewish community to thank for his release after five hears in captivity in Cuba. “He never gave up and we never gave up,” Obama told guests at the…

  By Forward Staff Dec 18, 2014 | < 1 min read
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  Opinion

  What We Learn From the Salary Survey

  So why do we do this, anyhow? Why, for six years in a row now, does the Forward go through the immense trouble of sifting through reams of public documents and then making hundreds of calls to verify basic public information about Jewish charities? And what have we learned? When we started the salary survey…

  Dec 17, 2014 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  One More Thing About the Salary Survey

  Thinkstock Sagi Balasha wants you to know that he makes more than you may think. In fact, twice as much. The CEO of the Israeli-American Council is listed in the latest Forward salary survey as earning only $93,900 a year, making him the second most underpaid on our annual list of executives of national Jewish…

  By Jane Eisner Dec 16, 2014 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  Abraham’s Lesson: Quality Over Quantity in Push for Jewish Continuity

  Anxiety about the Jewish future — and the number of people we will have in that future — is totally reasonable. It is a long-standing hobby of Jews going back to Abraham, and an especially popular pastime of late 20th and early 21st century Jews. It is born of the historical reality of the Shoah…

  By Yehuda Kurtzer Dec 16, 2014 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Family Is at the Center of Everything

  T.M. Luhrmann, a Stanford University anthropologist, recently published a fascinating piece in the New York Times positing that over thousands of years, wheat people and rice people have developed distinct cultures. The cultivation of wheat depends on rainfall and individual work, while “a community of rice farmers needs to work together in tightly integrated ways,”…

  By Jane Eisner Dec 16, 2014 | 3 min read