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
Romemu Bans ‘Email Chametz’ on Passover
We’ve all felt it. That ever-present desire — compulsion, really — to check and then recheck our email. Just one more hit of the refresh button. Just one more scroll. Just one more reply-all. Just one more delete. We love it. And we hate it. Most of the year, we bemoan but ultimately accept the…
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Opinion Failing To Capture the Vibrancy of British Jewish Life
A number of times over the last few years, I’ve had the same, mildly disconcerting, conversation. I’m a pretty involved in the UK Jewish community, spending a big chunk of my life on the merry-go-round of Jewish events. The community also forms of big part of my social life and after 42 years of involvement…
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Opinion British Jews Go the Way of American Jews
First, the good news. The most recent census revealed that, for the first time in decades, the decline in Britain’s Jewish population has been arrested. In 2011, 263,346 chose to identify themselves as Jewish by religion in England and Wales, compared to 259,927 in 2001. Beneath the headline figure, however, all it not as it…
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Opinion When Is BDS Not BDS? A Vassar Passover Tale
Several alert readers are unhappy with my post last week on the nasty BDS debate at Vassar College. Among other things, I referred readers to a post by the conservative legal scholar William Jacobson on his LegalInsurrection.com blog, providing extensive documentation on the background to the clash. Critics claim I wrongly soft-pedaled the behavior of…
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Opinion Hillel Balances Donors and Students on Campus
Jay Michaelson’s recent column in these pages, “Only One Way to Change Hillel: Leave,” reveals a number of damaging yet popular misconceptions about the Hillel world and the role of donors in dictating the content of our programming. Jay, since you referred to my own recent essay here, “The Hillel Kids are All Right,” I’m…
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Opinion Groveling Season, Las Vegas to Jerusalem to D.C.
Las Vegas, March 29: Chris Christie addresses Republican Jewish Coalition. Sheldon Adelson listens. / Getty Images With all the apologies flying back and forth these days, you might almost think Yom Kippur came early this year. In fact, tradition teaches that there’s a deep spiritual bond between Yom Kippur, which is six months from now,…
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Opinion Does Takeover of Crimea Mean Messiah Is Near?
Getty Images Most of the Jewish and general world is fuming over Russian President Vladimir Putin’s takeover of Crimea. But some ultra-Orthodox Jews are positively delighted by it. This week, Grand Rabbi Moshe Shternbuch, the vice president of Israel’s Rabbinical Court and a descendant of the revered rabbi known as the Vilna Gaon (aka “Genius…
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Opinion Lesson of Chris Christie and Ehud Olmert Scandals
The state of New Jersey prides itself on its “long and strong relationship” with the state of Israel. The feeling is often mutual. But this is getting ridiculous. Both states are sweating through major political corruption scandals reaching to the very highest ranks of government. In both cases, the central figure in the scandal saw…
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Opinion For a Keystone XL Pipeline Grand Bargain
It’s time for a grand bargain on the Keystone XL pipeline. For years, President Obama has been stuck in between a rock and a tar sand. Environmentalists have made the pipeline, which would connect tar sands in Canada with refineries in the United States, a cause célèbre. To them, it is a defining moment for…
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Opinion Praying Alone
Be careful what you wish for. My friend Sharon Cohen has introduced me to a rapidly growing phenomenon — to wit, streaming services. For those of you who may be technological laggards, a streaming service is a live broadcast of a worship service. Sit back, relax, and you can watch the Friday night service from…
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Letters Dialogue, Not Diktat
A column from March 21, “Only One Way To Change Hillel: Leave,” contains some gross inaccuracies that need to be corrected. It suggests that, in 2009, the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco issued a “gag rule” regarding Israel-Palestine, and that we did so because “two major California-based foundations said that if one dime of…
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Culture ‘My mayor Muslim, my bagel Jewish’ — the Knicks chant capturing New York’s soul
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Film & TV In ‘Disclosure Day,’ Steven Spielberg finds himself at odds with Jewish thought about aliens
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