Opinion

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  No, Kerry, ‘Apartheid’ Isn’t On Israel’s Agenda

  Palestinian supporters of Hamas attend a rally in the West Bank / Getty Images Employing the term “apartheid” — a word that conjures up the evils of both colonialism and racism in South Africa — to describe Israel’s future if peace with the Palestinians isn’t reached is nothing but a canard. Within the 1967 lines,…

  By Jonathan Tobin

  2 min read
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  Opinion

  If It Quacks Like Apartheid

  Palestinian protesters near Israel’s separation wall in 2013 / Getty Images After getting verbally pistol-whipped for merely suggesting that Israel was sliding head first down the slippery slope to apartheid, Secretary of State John Kerry quickly realized that Israel can’t handle the truth. He backpedaled so fast, he broke Lance Armstrong’s record. While Kerry took…

  By Maysoon Zayid May 12, 2014 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  Eretz Niagara Falls

  If there was an autonomous Jewish homeland in Grand Island, N.Y., near Niagara Falls, what would it look like? This idea seems surreal today. But it was exactly what Mordechai Manuel Noah, one of the most influential Jews in the United States in the early 19th century, advocated. Noah named his utopian vision of Jewish…

  By Martyna Starosta May 12, 2014 | < 1 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 There’s a shocking new report on civilian deaths in Gaza. If only it were accurate.

  

• Nora Berman Is Netflix’s new show the most Jewish cartoon ever?

  

• Dan Perry Israel’s new gift to the far right could help end the Gaza war

  

• Emily Tamkin Entering motherhood — and an obsession with the works of an Italian Jewish literary hero

  

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  Opinion

  Embracing the Irrationality of Circumcision and Kashrut

  Judaism has long had an uncomfortable relationship with rationality. On the one hand, our talmudic sages, classically influenced philosophers, and secular scientists and doctors have all taken rational reasoning to great, sometimes dizzying heights. Ours is a tradition of law, education and logic. Yet on the other hand, many aspects of Judaism – like most…

  By Jay Michaelson May 12, 2014 | 5 min read
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  Opinion

  New Crop of IDF Chiefs Is Flock of Hardline Doves

  The Israeli military has sent what amounts to a barely disguised message to the political leadership and the troops in the latest round of senior command promotions, announced April 25. With the Israeli-Palestinian peace process frozen, settler militancy on the rise and right-wing religious nationalists increasingly making their presence felt at the junior command level,…

  By J.J. Goldberg May 12, 2014 | 5 min read
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  Opinion

  Counting the Omer and Nigeria’s Kidnapped Girls

  Nigerian women call for the freedom of Chibok’s kidnapped girls / Getty Images Last month, an Islamist armed group called Boko Haram abducted 276 girls from a school in Chibok, Nigeria. Presumably, these girls will be killed or sold into slavery and child marriages. Even though I sit here in Los Angeles, this crisis affects…

  By Naomi Ackerman May 11, 2014 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  A Portrait of Israelis in 2014, By the Numbers

  Yediot Ahronot published a survey of Israeli Jewish adults on May 5, aimed at showing where the nation stood on its 66th birthday and where the younger generation was headed. Broken down by generation — over 50, 35 to 49 and under 35 — it shows a population that’s growing steadily more religious, more politically…

  By J.J. Goldberg May 9, 2014 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  A Divestment Campaign We Can Endorse

  As 2014 opened, Todd Gitlin, a Columbia University professor and writer, predicted in the Forward that college campuses would become a battleground for activists seeking to stop or stem climate change. “To go out on a limb,” he wrote, “there’s a fighting chance that this campaign will force fossil-fuel divestment at one (at least) major…

  May 9, 2014 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  When Israelis Teach Their Kids To Hate

  A boy plays with a rifle during a weapons display in Efrat, Independence Day 2014 / Getty Images Little kids throw mock grenades and pretend to shoot big guns; a boy crawls militant-style as gun-wielding adults cheer him on; a girl wearing a pink dress carries a rocket launcher twice her size. These are some…

  By Michael Kaplan May 8, 2014 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  Israel Faces Facebook Intifada From WIthin Ranks of Army

  On the surface, the Israeli army’s Facebook Intifada is a very 21st-century crisis. A soldier on patrol cocks his weapon at a Palestinian youth, apparently violating the army’s rules of engagement. Other Palestinians film the encounter and upload it to YouTube, exposing the soldier to possible discipline. The soldier’s friends launch a Facebook page in…

  By J.J. Goldberg May 8, 2014 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Supreme Court Got Politics of Prayer All Wrong

  Prayer outside the U.S. Supreme Court / Getty Images “For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful, amen.” For ten years I attended a Church of England school and, for every set meal during that time, a version of this grace was said. Although there was a notable minority…

  By Dan Friedman May 7, 2014 | 3 min read