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
Millennials Must Grab Keys to Jewish ‘Car’
As a first-year rabbinical student at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR), I read a lot about the challenges facing “millennials.” With the recent outpouring of analysis relating to the Pew report on American Jewry, the amount of content may have quadrupled, but the number of young voices has not. I’m often frustrated…
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Opinion Stunning Nazi-Looted Art Find Reignites Question of German Restitution
The recent revelation that German authorities discovered a treasure trove of presumed-lost masterpieces of art in the dingy apartment of a Nazi art dealer’s son has reignited the complicated issue of reparations almost 50 years after Germany declared its job of restitution complete. Though the legal ramifications are byzantine, it appears that officials have a…
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Opinion No Joke: U.N. Observes World Toilet Day
The United Nations marked today, November 19, as the first-ever World Toilet Day. The event was organized by the government of Singapore. It is a subject that quickly invites jokes, as near every news report on the event has seen fit to emphasize. The New Zealand ambassador, who is speaking right now on U.N. TV…
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Opinion Meet Max Levin, Teenage Stock Pick King
Max Levin makes more money sitting in his high school math class than most people do during a day at their office. At 11, the Jewish boy from Voorhees, N.J., was making his first stock picks, guided by his grandfather, a day trader in New York City. Two years later, he used his bar mitzvah…
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Opinion Why Rockets of Gaza Went Quiet — and Lessons Israel Can Learn
November 14 marked the first anniversary of Operation Pillar of Defense, Israel’s eight-day assault on Gaza with the declared aim of ending rocket fire on Israeli towns. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu marked the occasion on November 12 with a visit to the desert headquarters of the Israel Defense Force’s Gaza Division and a speech to…
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Opinion Ken Burns Teaches Jewish Side of Gettysburg
Exactly 150 years ago, President Abraham Lincoln said: “The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.” On its anniversary, the Gettysburg Address, which is often considered the most important speech of American history, is anything but forgotten: Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns launched…
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Opinion Did You Get Invited to Obama’s Hanukkah Party?
It’s time to check your inbox. The White House has sent out invitation for this year’s Hanukkah reception hosted by President Obama. It is a good way of measuring one’s status in the world of Jewish leadership. If you’re not invited to the White House reception you’re either from the wrong party (in that case…
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Opinion Real Issue for Conservative Judaism Is Authenticity
To be perfectly clear: I believe that the struggle for gender equality within Judaism has brought enormous benefits to Jewish society. The point of my essay was to help explain why Conservative Judaism has not been able to retain its youth by reflecting on why it did not satisfy me. When I wrote that it…
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Opinion One Man’s Jewish Temple Mount Crusade
There is no single place in Jerusalem as politically sensitive as the site that Jews call the Temple Mount, and Muslims call the Haram al-Sharif, or noble sanctuary. In the past couple of decades, there have been riots and violent confrontations there. The Second Intifada erupted in 2000 after Ariel Sharon, then leader of Israel’s…
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Opinion In Orthodox Conflict, Unity Versus Unilateralism
Judaism’s response to modernity over the centuries has been one of constant change, sometimes small and sometimes large. As attitudes shifted, movements developed. Reform broke from what would later be called the Orthodox mainstream. Conservative broke from Reform. Reconstructionist broke from Conservative. Traditional broke from Conservative. As the Passover song goes, Chad gadya, chad gadya….
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Opinion Road to Jewish Success Runs Through Failure
(JTA) — At most Jewish conferences, speakers and participants are careful to focus on sharing only their successes and accomplishments. After all, you never know when a potential donor might be listening. But on Monday, 120 Jewish communal professionals and lay leaders are gathering to focus on something very different: failure. Sponsored by New York’s…
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Opinion The Gaza hostage crisis could forever change how American Jews relate to Israel — but it’s not too late to fix that
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Yiddish ווידעאָ: היסטאָריקערין וויווי לאַקס באַשרײַבט געשיכטע פֿון לאָנדאָנער ייִדישער פּרעסעVIDEO: Historian Vivi Laks tells history of the London Yiddish Press
שבֿע צוקער פֿירט דעם שמועס מיט וויווי לאַקס און ביידע לייענען פֿאָר עטלעכע פֿעליעטאָנען פֿון יענע צײַטן.
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Yiddish World Puppet Monty Pickle is guest on the Forward’s ‘Yiddish Word of the Day’
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News Who is Bruce Blakeman, the ‘Almost Orthodox’ Jew running for New York governor?
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