In the Forward’s opinion section, you’ll find analysis and essays from diverse corners of the Jewish world.
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Opinion
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Opinion
Why Benjamin Netanyahu’s Dream of Building Arab Alliances Doomed to Fail
In his recent United Nations General Assembly speech, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke glowingly about the possibility of strategic cooperation “for the first time” among Israel and Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in the fight against militant Islam. “A broader rapprochement between Israel and the Arab world may help facilitate…
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Opinion Is Israel Abandoning Push for Two States?
In a potentially explosive report, veteran Yediot Ahronot defense commentator Ron Ben-Yishai writes on Ynet that Israel is headed toward a new confrontation with the United States and its allies in the wake of this summer’s Operation Protective Edge. The Americans and Europeans insist that Israel must strive for a two-state solution with the Palestinians,…
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Opinion Open Up Hillel to All
Judith Butler speaks at the inaugural Open Hillel conference in Boston/Photo by Gili Getz/Open Hillel (JTA) — Four rabbis are engaged in an animated debate about Jewish law. Three of them agree, but the dissenter is adamant that he’s got it right. He cries out: “A sign, God, I beg You, a sign!” It begins to…
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Opinion Why Benjamin Netanyahu Is Wrong To Cite ‘American Values’ in Jerusalem Feud
Benjamin Netanyahu has drawn a goodly measure of criticism for his latest verbal tussle with the White House, culminating in his charge that the Obama administration violated “American values.” Frankly, most of the criticism is undeserved. There’s a lot to be said about the exchange and the bilateral tensions it reflects, but the prime minister’s…
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Opinion Hillel Is Already Open — So Why the Conference?
Hillel President Eric Fingerhut chats with a student / Flickr: Hillel News and Views Once again the love affair between the Jewish people and higher education is back in full bloom. The start of a new school year, and the Jewish New Year, marked the beginning of robust programming for Jewish college students across the…
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Opinion How Gil Steinlauf Chose ‘Personal Torah’ Over One True One
A respected Conservative clergyman, Gil Steinlauf, senior rabbi of Washington’s Adas Israel Congregation wrote his congregants a moving letter shortly after Yom Kippur. In it, he announced that he and his wife of 20 years, Batya, would be divorcing. That alone would have been surprise enough for his congregation, considering the model marriage, complete with…
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Opinion News Quiz: Do You Have ‘Chutzpah’?
Getty Images Matzo balls, blintzes and – Beyonce? Not to mention Barbra Streisand’s agent? It’s a great start to a new year! Get quizzing!
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Opinion A Kippah on the Head of Israel’s Intelligence Chief
It seemed at first little more than a throwaway line in an otherwise wonkish interview-profile of Israel’s outgoing chief of Military Intelligence, Major General Aviv Kochavi, appearing September 19 in Yediot Aharonot. “In the final days of his term in M.I.,” military correspondent Alex Fishman wrote, “Kochavi finds himself trying to make the case that…
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Opinion Why Rabbi Gil Steinlauf’s Coming Out Is Watershed Moment for Jews
In 1977, Gerson D. Cohen, chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, approved a petition by the Rabbinical Assembly to create a committee to study the role of women as spiritual leaders in the Conservative movement. The voices included were varied, some in favor of the ordination of women as rabbis, some opposed. It…
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Opinion Why Hamas Never Wanted War — and Knows It Lost
Hamas is eager to have Mahmoud Abbas’s U.S.-trained Presidential Guard take control of the border crossings between Gaza and Israel. But the Islamist organization isn’t likely to give in to pressure from Abbas and the West to put its own military wing under Abbas’s control, nor to let officials of the proposed Fatah-Hamas unity government…
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Opinion Why We Censor ‘Klinghoffer’ at Our Peril
Getty Images (Haaretz) — As the Metropolitan Opera prepares to launch its production of “The Death of Klinghoffer,” John Adams and Alice Goodman’s 1991 operatic account of the 1985 hijacking of the Achille Lauro cruise ship and the murder of a Jewish, wheelchair-bound passenger by Palestinian militants, the media has been abuzz. Protestors have gathered outside…
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