Opinion

• Opinion

  Fight for Chained Wives Goes Online

  (JTA) — The websites look like those of political prisoners. Under the caption “Free Tamar Now!” there is a close-up photo of demonstrators with signs and megaphones. “Stop the abuse,” one sign reads. But FreeTamar.org and the Free Gital Facebook group seek emancipation not from literal bars or chains. Rather, they seek liberation for agunot…

  By Talia Lavin

  2 min read
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  Opinion

  Why Is Orthodoxy Packing Up Big Tent?

  Readers of Israel’s Haaretz.com, many of them liberal and secular, must have been surprised to read, in late October, a public manifesto, signed by 42 members of the Rabbinical Council of America castigating “Open Orthodox rabbis and leaders” in the United States. The signatories — none of them, it should be noted, an officer of…

  By Jonathan Sarna Nov 6, 2013 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Tall (Reform) Rabbi in Sea of Black Hats

  More than 5,000 Chabad rabbis and supporters gathered on Sunday for the 30th annual conference of international Shluchim, or messengers of the Hasidic movement. Former U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman addressed the crowd as the first keynote speaker. Rabbi Dov Greenberg, Chabad rabbi at Stanford University, told the crowd that you are more likely to find…

  By Eliyahu Federman Nov 5, 2013 | < 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 Americans keep getting killed in the West Bank. Here’s how the US could fight that awful trend

  

• Nora Berman First Camp Auschwitz, now Alligator Alcatraz — why the right is obsessed with commodifying brutality

  

• Dan Perry What exactly is going on between Israel and Syria — and is the prospect of peace dead?

  

• Emily Tamkin Zohran Mamdani’s victory proves it: The ‘gotcha’ mode of fighting antisemitism has to go

  

The Latest

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  Opinion

  How Conservative Judaism Lost Me

  One of the most striking findings in the recent Pew Research Center survey on Jews in America is the massive decline of Conservative Judaism. While 43% of American Jews affiliated as Conservative Jews in 1990, just 18% do so today. This is causing much soul-searching in the Conservative movement. The reasons for this decline are…

  By Michah Gottlieb Nov 5, 2013 | 5 min read
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  Opinion

  Kerry, ‘Sobered’ by Bibi’s Map, ‘Will Present Plan’

  A day before Secretary of State John Kerry’s expected arrival in Israel to further peace talks, Israeli news media are reporting that Kerry has begun preparing an American peace plan to present to the parties in January as a basis for negotiations, if there isn’t progress by then. It will reportedly be based on the…

  By J.J. Goldberg Nov 5, 2013 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  The (Chabad) Rebbe’s Army

  (JTA) — So far as I know, there are two major roll calls each year in the Jewish world. One takes place each spring at the annual AIPAC convention in Washington, in which the names of hundreds of members of Congress are read aloud from the rostrum. The other took place last night, at the annual…

  By Ben Harris Nov 4, 2013 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Diving Into ‘The Melting Pot’ for Answers on Pew Survey of #Jewish America

  When the researchers at Pew released their study in early October, they offered a series of statistics that were supposed to offer “A Portrait of Jewish Americans.” While I admit I’m not a quantitative type, its seems that a third of Jewish America immediately despaired the fate of Jews; then a third of Jewish America…

  By Karen E. H. Skinazi Nov 4, 2013 | 7 min read
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  Opinion

  We Are All Russian Jews Now

  In the wake of the Pew Research Center’s findings on American Jews, the Forward’s headlines told a disheartening story: “Boundaries Are Blurring,” “New Study Finds Jews Fleeing Faith Traditions” and “Can You Be Jewish and Believe in Jesus?” But for Jews in Russia and Ukraine, none of this was news. With two Russian colleagues, in…

  By Zvi Gitelman Nov 4, 2013 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Who’s In and Who’s Out in Orthodoxy

  At a time when most Jewish leaders are eagerly embracing anyone who claims a shred of Jewish identity or heritage, some Orthodox leaders are doing just the opposite: dramatically restricting the acceptable behaviors and belief systems of even their own. So we have the embarrassing spectacle of Rabbi Asher Lopatin, the new president of Yeshivat…

  Nov 4, 2013 | < 1 min read
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  Opinion

  U.N. Rights Council’s Israel Embarassment

  The goals of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) are laudatory: a non-partisan forum designed to promote the highest levels of human rights adherence by nations around the world. Unfortunately, the current council fails to perform its mission as it has descended into concerning itself more with local politics and decades old ideological conflicts….

  By Aaron Magid Nov 4, 2013 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Share Birthright Data With All

  Taglit-Birthright Israel is considered by many to be the most successful Big Idea in the American Jewish community in recent years, sending hundreds of thousands of young people to Israel on a free, 10-day trip of connection and discovery. But even those who run and fund Birthright acknowledge that, nearly 14 years after its creation,…

  Nov 4, 2013 | 3 min read