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
Why Thanksgiving May Be More Miraculous Than Hanukkah
This year’s convergence of Hanukah and Thanksgiving, which, we’re told, will not be repeated until 70,000 years from now, leads to a question: Which celebrates the greater miracle? The question may seem misplaced, even impertinent. We understand Hanukah as a celebration of miracle; no miracle is associated with Thanksgiving. Yet I mean to argue that…
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Opinion Without Arik, There’s No One To Sing
For my American friends: Its hard to describe what is going on today in Tel Aviv and all over Israel. The entire country is in a state of mourning, and even the weather has joined in with grey overcast skies. Its days like these though, that I love being Israeli. There is an overwhelming feeling of…
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Opinion The Day (Israeli) Music Died
To borrow a phrase from Don McLean, here in Israel, yesterday was the day the music died. Just as Buddy Holly, who McLean was singing about, was an American icon, Arik Einstein, who passed away aged 74, was an Israeli icon. He was the man who moved on the ideologically earnest music of the Zionist…
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Opinion When Bibi and Peres Crooned Arik Einstein
(JTA) — Amid the grief over the passing of iconic Israeli singer Arik Einstein, the internet has given us a gem: Bibi Netanyahu and Shimon Peres — together, in the nineties — singing one of Einstein’s best-known songs, “Ani v’Ata” (You and I). The clip starts with Israeli celebrities Ofra Haza and Dan Shilon singing…
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Opinion On Thanksgiving, Confronting Our Country’s Bitter Past of Slavery
“A person is obligated to see himself as if he were leaving Egypt.” This instruction from the Talmud may not seem timely at the moment, as American Jews prepare to celebrate the conjoined holidays of Hanukkah and Thanksgiving rather than Passover. But thanks to the visceral, devastating film “12 Years a Slave,” we have a…
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Opinion For Africans in Israel, Time for Justice
Israel’s High Court of Justice struck down Israel’s practice of indefinitely detaining many non-Jewish African asylum seekers without due process in September. The unanimous court ruled that this detention policy violated Israel’s Basic Law on Human Dignity and Liberty and ordered the government to assess the individual cases of the 1,750 detained asylum seekers for…
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Opinion My MSNBC appearance
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Opinion Was Valerie Jarrett Obama’s Secret Iran Link?
That bombshell Associated Press report on Sunday about the months of secret U.S.-Iranian talks that led up to the Geneva agreement has added whole new layers of mystery and intrigue, not to mention venom, to the news of the nuclear agreement itself. What’s fascinating is how much isn’t being said. The story was first broken…
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Opinion Slouching Towards Sochi
In three months from now, athletes from all over the world will arrive in the Black Sea resort town of Sochi, Russia, for the start of the Winter Olympic Games. We will experience all the requisite Olympic fanfare — the fluttering flags, blaring trumpets, nationalistic tallies of silver and gold. And the host, Russia, will…
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Opinion The Trouble With Idealizing Hasidim
Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein have yet to sell shtreimels. But one fashion commentator — and a whole lot of YouTube viewers — think Hasidic garb is worth another look. “The Substance of Hasidic Style,” a video posted by fashion platform StyleLikeU (and reposted by Upworthy), has garnered more than 170,000 views after it was…
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Opinion News Quiz: Adam Levine’s New Title
Adam Levine meets Chiwetel Ejiofor and Nazi gold in what SOUNDS like a really bad movie, but is actually this week’s really fun Jewish news quiz. And guess who else is here? King Solomon and Brad Pitt! Ok… so maybe that’s a movie I’d see.
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Culture Inside the ancient Christian theology driving modern antisemitism
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News Jews paused Indiana’s abortion ban — by turning a religious freedom law against the evangelical right
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Opinion The moral degradation of Israel’s far right is even worse than you think
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Culture In 1989, Harold Pinter and Jerry Schatzberg made the perfect Holocaust movie for 2026
In Case You Missed It
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Culture Gene Shalit, a mensch with a personality as big as his mustache, turns 100
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Looking Forward How a song about the food chain became a Seder mainstay
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Fast Forward Connecticut Catholic school punishes students who targeted ‘Jew Canaan’ rivals on social media
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Fast Forward Pro-Palestinian rally at Buchenwald memorial is shut down by German authorities
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