Opinion

• Opinion

  Is Bibi Shedding His Peace-Seeker Pose?

  Israel’s peace-pact rejectionists, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon (Wikimedia Commons) Benjamin Netanyahu is looking more and more these days like he’s preparing to take on the pessimists and nay-sayers and prove them wrong. For most of the past year the cynics have been insisting that neither Netanyahu nor Palestinian Authority chief…

  By J.J. Goldberg

  4 min read
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  Opinion

  Finding a New Room in the Jewish House

  My original thought had been to follow up my column on the year now ending by writing about the year that will soon begin. But twist and turn as I did, I found that I had very little to say about the 12 months ahead. Robert Frost’s last poem comes to mind: “The prophets really…

  By Leonard Fein Dec 29, 2013 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Obamacare ‘Pajama Boy’ Controversy Wrapped in Anti-Semitism

  Surely the silliest kerfluffle of a political year that contained much silliness was the recent conservative hand-wringing over “Pajama Boy.” Pajama Boy, you will be forgiven for not knowing, was the star of a recent ad — one among many — by “Organizing for Action” (formerly Obama for America) designed to get people to register…

  By Jay Michaelson Dec 28, 2013 | 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 Israel’s strike on Iran was necessary. But for real change, the US must join the fray

  

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

  

The Latest

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  Opinion

  How To Defend Quebec’s Secularism Charter

  The Charter of Values seeks to ban conspicuous religious symbols. / Government of Quebec Do you remember the Quebec government’s Charter of Values, the proposed legislation that would bar public workers from wearing conspicuous religious symbols — like the kippah, hijab or turban — on the job? Of course you do. Have you been biting…

  By Sigal Samuel Dec 27, 2013 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  How Not To Solve Israel’s Housing Crisis

  Has Israel just eased the housing crisis — or issued an invitation for wanton wastage of natural resources? From the start of 2014 on Wednesday, municipal taxes on second homes will double. Or to be accurate, taxes on all homes that are occupied for less than nine months a year will be double taxed. This…

  By Nathan Jeffay Dec 26, 2013 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  Israel Must Work With Bedouin To Develop Negev for All

  (JTA) — This past May, I made a YouTube video with the Israeli NGO Rabbis for Human Rights that drew a parallel between my role as Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof,” in which the Jews in Sholem Aleichem’s tale faced expulsion from the Russian shtetl of Anatevka, and a Knesset proposal to forcibly displace…

  By Theodore Bikel Dec 26, 2013 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  As One Jewish Retail Empire Falls, Another Rises

  Two retail empires with Jewish roots collided in New York this week — one on its deathbed, the other ready to take its place. Loehmann’s, the fashion discounter founded in 1921 by an enterprising department-store buyer named Frieda Loehmann, announced this week it will shut down its remaining 39 stores after its third bankruptcy filing….

  By Michael Kaminer Dec 26, 2013 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  Shunning Christmas Is Bad Choice for Jews in Heartland

  Sarah Seltzer takes aim at Jews who choose to embrace a number of “Christian” traditions. Her guidance is simple: “No trees, no wreaths, no carols, no cookies — unless, of course, they’re fortune cookies.” As a firmly rooted Jew, I took offence to Seltzer’s, and I worry about what they imply. It seems that for…

  By Max Edwards Dec 25, 2013 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  For Edgar Bronfman, Humanity to LGBT People Was Intuitive

  Six years ago, I had lunch with Edgar Bronfman, along with the Samuel Bronfman Foundation’s executive director, Dana Raucher, at the Four Seasons in New York. The dining area was quiet and empty, and I was nervous. Dana whispered to me, “There’s Barbara Walters. Don’t look.” I was there to tell Edgar how much it…

  By Idit Klein Dec 24, 2013 | < 1 min read
• Opinion

  A Man Who Took Jewish Faith as a Challenge

  Last summer in Israel, one of the teenage Bronfman Fellows asked me why the group wasn’t required to pray together every morning. He found it to be offensive, and a real loss that a pluralistic group of Jews weren’t learning to pray as a means to transcend their differences of opinion and practice. I took…

  By Naamah Paley Dec 24, 2013 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  How Edgar Bronfman Transformed an Alienated Russian Jew

  Edgar Bronfman, did not know me, and I had limited interactions with him. Yet I feel a deep sense of loss at his passing. In 1988, as a Russian emigre living in Brooklyn, I was completely unaffiliated, and turned off by the Jewish community. Yet my alienation did not disqualify me from being selected to…

  By Ella Shteingart Dec 24, 2013 | 2 min read