Opinion

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  How Not To Brainstorm the Jewish Future

  Supporters of Naftali Bennett celebrate in Tel Aviv in 2013. / Getty Images When I heard that the Israeli government and the Jewish Agency were spearheading a three-day “Online Brainstorming Marathon to Plan the Future of the Jewish People,” the international crowdsourcing initiative instantly grabbed my attention. Partly, it was because I’d heard that Israel’s…

  By Mira Sucharov

  3 min read
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  Opinion

  Gold Medalist Charlie White Not Really Jewish

  Getty Images (JTA) — Earlier this week, Jewish news outlets ran reports on American ice dancers Charlie White and Meryl Davis winning Olympic gold. All these outlets reported — based on previously published articles — that White was Jewish. It appears we were all misinformed. The Detroit Jewish News — which initially report White’s supposed…

  By Daniel Treiman Feb 19, 2014 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  How to See the Schneersohn Library Online

  You don’t have to fly all the way to Moscow to view the Schneersohn Library. After almost a century in the bowels of Russian’s state library, the Schneersohn books are available online for anyone around the world to see. You can view the books in a web browser or even, in many cases, download them…

  By Paul Berger Feb 19, 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 I have the answer to Jon Stewart’s toughest question about Israel

  

• Nora Berman ‘Eddington’ is full of conspiracy theories but it’s not about Jews. Or is it?

  

• Dan Perry A US official just made history in the West Bank — did he imperil prospects for peace?

  

• Emily Tamkin Is starvation in Gaza really Israel’s fault? The facts are clear

  

The Latest

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  Opinion

  Call It Sochifreude

  Call it Sochifreude. For the past two years, human rights activists have decried the conditions of the Sochi Olympic games, which wrap up this week, often to deaf ears. They’ve reported accounts of migrant workers being abused, environmental laws being trashed, billions of dollars being embezzled, and, of course, the ban on gay “propaganda” which…

  By Jay Michaelson Feb 19, 2014 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  BDS Is Not Anti-Semitism

  Pro-Palestinians activists demonstrate in 2010 in Paris, France. / Getty Images No. It’s not. The Prime Minister of Israel and the Grand Poobah of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and Marching Band can say it as much and as loudly as they want. But the BDS movement is not, as Grand…

  By Emily L. Hauser Feb 18, 2014 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Single, Non-Jewish, and Eager To Convert

  Kelly was one of those non-Jewish girls I’d always envied — the ones who seemed to know where every cool party was and dressed with an urban flair. So it took me by surprise when, one day last year, she excitedly told me that she was converting to Judaism. I knew she loved “Jewy” things….

  By Shayna Estulin Feb 18, 2014 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  A Woman Is More Than a Wedding Night

  Racheli Ibenboim chats with writer Tuvia Tenenbom./Photo by Isi Tenenbaum I may not be a dyed-in-the-wool feminist by any stretch of the imagination. But I have a strong sense of the rights of women to take agency in their own lives and a repulsion for the oppressive nature of men who harass women for their…

  By Mordechai Lightstone Feb 17, 2014 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  Denmark’s Kosher Ban Hypocrisy

  Denmark denounces kosher slaughter as animal cruelty. Yet the Scandinavian nation allows mink farming for fur./Getty images Ritual slaughter, performed according to Islamic and Jewish tradition, is considered a humane method of slaughter under the Humane Methods of Livestock Slaughter Act (HMSLA), the United States federal law designed to decrease animal suffering. In ritual slaughter,…

  By Eliyahu Federman Feb 17, 2014 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  Israeli Right Turning on Security Chiefs: ‘Treason’

  ‘Arguably treasonous’? Former Israeli intelligence chiefs Meir Dagan of Mossad (left) and Yuval Diskin of Shin Bet / Wikimedia Commons There seems be a growing realization on the pro-Israel right — in some corners of it, at least — that its notions of Israel’s security needs don’t have much support among Israel’s security professionals. What…

  By J.J. Goldberg Feb 17, 2014 | 5 min read
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  Opinion

  Locking Israel’s Ethiopian Problem Away Behind Bars

  For the first time last year, Israel’s Knesset held a special session on a shocking issue: the imprisonment of large numbers of soldiers of Ethiopian origin by the army. Pnina Tamano-Shata, one of the country’s two Ethiopian members of the Knesset, reminded her fellow MKs that 40% of all Ethiopian men who have served in…

  By Seth J. Frantzman Feb 17, 2014 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Israel Crowdsources ‘Jewish Future’ Plan Online

  Israeli Minister of Jerusalem and Diaspora Affairs Naftali Bennett / Getty Images The Israeli minister with the Diaspora portfolio believes that “what used to work as the Israel-Diaspora relationship doesn’t work,” he told the Forward. Minister of Jerusalem and Diaspora Affairs Naftali Bennett said that Israelis need to start deferring to Diaspora Jews regarding their…

  By Nathan Jeffay Feb 16, 2014 | 2 min read