Opinion

• Opinion

  Why Women Can — And Must — Lay Tefillin

  A woman prays wearing tefillin in Jerusalem/Getty Images Must, should, or can observant Jewish women wrap tefillin, or not? This well-worn question was recently revived thanks to the two Modern Orthodox high schools in New York — SAR and Ramaz — that have tepidly embraced female students who wish to wrap tefillin publicly in their…

  By Will Friedman

  3 min read
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  Opinion

  Do Jewish Voices Count More on Israel and Iran?

  Sanctions bill sponsor Sen. Robert Menendez addresses AIPAC annual policy conference, Washington Convention Center, March 5, 2013. / Getty Images In American politics, do Jewish voices count more on Israel than others? Should they? And who’s counting? UCLA professor Mark Kleiman, for one, who called on his Washington Monthly blog for readers to lobby their…

  By Raphael Magarik Jan 22, 2014 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  The N-Word’s Real Crime

  Did you know that it’s technically against the law to use the word “nigger” in New York City? The City Council voted unanimously — as in 49 to nothing — to encourage New Yorkers not to use the N-word and to learn about its racist provenance. This was back in 2007, but you’d be hardpressed…

  Jan 22, 2014 | 3 min read

Columnists View All

• Jodi Rudoren This is my last column as editor of the Forward

  

• Jay Michaelson Being Jewish in America today feels like walking multiple tightropes at once

  

• Rob Eshman A precise, Chekhovian logic guided Israel’s strike on Iran — but chaos could come next

  

• Nora Berman Greta Thunberg’s Gaza flotilla was never going to help Palestinians

  

• Dan Perry Celebrating my daughter’s birthday in a bomb shelter, as missiles struck Tel Aviv

  

• Emily Tamkin Trump’s latest move makes Mahmoud Khalil a Joseph for our times

  

The Latest

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  Opinion

  My Fight To Lay Tefillin At an Orthodox School

  A young woman prays wearing tefillin on April 11, 2013 in Jerusalem, Israel. / Getty Images On December 8, 2013, SAR High School principal Rabbi Naphtali Harcsztark permitted students Ronit Morris and Yael Marans to lay tefillin in the school’s daily women’s prayer group, allowing them to do so within the school building. While this…

  By Eliana Fishman Jan 21, 2014 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Why Two Chief Rabbis Is Better Than One

  Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi Blau speaks at a Jewish school in Berlin. / Getty Images When you package it right, even a plot against pluralism can be made to seem progressive. In Israel, government ministers spanning from left to right have advanced legislation that will end the country’s dual Chief Rabbinate, under which there are two…

  By Nathan Jeffay Jan 21, 2014 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  Outsized Memories of Fallen Romanian Dictator Nicolae Ceausescu Lure Reporter

  (JTA) — In December 1989, a childhood friend and neighbor from Haifa posed a riddle to me that she had heard from her Bucharest-born mother. “What’s the fastest way to get a nine-foot crocodile?” Alegra asked me that year, when we were both 8 years old. I suggested raiding a crocodile farm, but Alegra said…

  By Cnaan Liphshiz Jan 21, 2014 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Tattoos Try — and Fail — To Reclaim the Swastika

  I’ve always wanted to visit Nashville, Tenn. On my recent trip there, I had every bit as much fun as I suspected I would. But I also saw something that made me gasp out loud. Downtown, I stumbled upon a tattoo shop. Being a person with tattoos (controversially, a Jew with tattoos), I decided to…

  By Teri Zucker Jan 21, 2014 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Canadian Envy on Martin Luther King Day

  Rabbi Joachim Prinz (center) confers with Martin Luther King Jr. at the March on Washington in 1963. / Getty Images As a Canadian Jew, I often feel a twinge of envy on Martin Luther King Day. I’m envious of larger-than-life heroes who succeed in uniting a nation around issues that are so blatantly about justice…

  By Mira Sucharov Jan 20, 2014 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  ‘Zoopla’ Joins Gibberish Feud Over ‘Quenelle’

  The latest in the Nicolas Anelka-Deuidonné-quenelle affair is that another apparently nonsense word has been inserted into the fray. “Zoopla,” the English real estate website and jersey sponsor of West Bromwich Albion has decided to end their sponsorship of the Midlands soccer team due to the failure of management to act on the matter of…

  By Eddy Portnoy Jan 20, 2014 | 5 min read
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  Opinion

  Lena Dunham’s Photoshopped Vogue Cover Causes Storm, Should Have Caused Celebration

  Lena Dunham’s appearance on the cover of Vogue could have been a cause for celebration. Long a domain for women whose principal achievements include having an impossibly symmetrical face and a wasp waist, the “Girls” creator is one of the first who was given the spot primarily because of what she’s got going on within….

  By Elissa Strauss Jan 20, 2014 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Breaking Through the Impasse on the Jordan Valley

  Recent news reports indicate that a major stumbling block in the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority is the insistence by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government on maintaining a military force on the border between the future Palestinian state and Jordan, along the Jordan Valley. This demand, and the fact that Secretary of State…

  By Amitai Etzioni Jan 20, 2014 | 4 min read