In the Forward’s opinion section, you’ll find analysis and essays from diverse corners of the Jewish world.
To pitch an opinion piece, email our Opinion Editor, Talya Zax.
Opinion
-
Opinion
Michael Bloomberg, Leave Dante de Blasio Alone
After 12 years and three terms as mayor, Michael Bloomberg somehow still can’t figure out how the average New Yorker thinks. The out-of-touch billionaire who bought a trifecta free pass to Gracie Mansion is leaving office this year. But he couldn’t resist the urge to make an idiot of himself on the way out the…
-
Opinion The ‘Unsavory’ Among Us
My neighborhood association is disturbed by a recent and ongoing surge in the number of “unsavory” people who use the neighborhood’s plentiful benches for sleeping. It proposes installing bench railings every three feet, which would render stretching out for sleep impossible. In 1968, the federally established minimum wage was $1.60 an hour. That works out…
-
Opinion Israel Should Allow Freedom of Jewish Faith to All
Last June, Jane Eisner participated in a private roundtable discussion at the Israeli Presidential Conference in Jerusalem about Israel’s Jewish identity. What came out of the talks was the sense that Jews in Israel and in the Diaspora face a similar challenge — how to be a modern people in a modern world while holding…
Columnists View All
The Latest
-
Opinion In Israel, Religion Is Reduced To Simplistic Categories
Last June, Jane Eisner participated in a private roundtable discussion at the Israeli Presidential Conference in Jerusalem about Israel’s Jewish identity. What came out of the talks was the sense that Jews in Israel and in the Diaspora face a similar challenge — how to be a modern people in a modern world while holding…
-
Opinion The Presidential Blessing
Taking a moment off from the intense debate over Syria, President Barack Obama published a blessing for the High Holidays. Obama noted that 50 years ago, Rabbi Joachim Prinz stood with Dr. King on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, and told the marchers the when god created man, he created him as everybody’s neighbor….
-
Opinion Drifting Towards a Tribal Jewishness
Last June, Jane Eisner participated in a private roundtable discussion at the Israeli Presidential Conference in Jerusalem about Israel’s Jewish identity. What came out of the talks was the sense that Jews in Israel and in the Diaspora face a similar challenge — how to be a modern people in a modern world while holding…
-
Opinion Anthony Weiner’s Meltdown Over Huma
Anthony Weiner blew his stack at a Jewish voter in Brooklyn who insulted his wife, calling the man a “jackass” through a mouthful of cheese danish. In a video posted online by Yeshiva World News political correspondent Jacob Kornbluh, Weiner can be seen engaging in a shouting match with an unidentified man in a yarmulke…
-
Opinion A Prayer for Syria
Suddenly everyone is talking about Syria. Two years of mayhem and murder, confusion and hesitation. 100,000 Syrians killed, a quarter of the population turned refugees, and now hundreds have been gassed to death, a sight which no Jew – no human – can ignore; a sight which once seen, cannot go unanswered. As we enter…
-
Opinion Chelsea Manning’s Identity Crisis Is One Jews Should Relate To
‘Yes, but is it good for the Jews?” We Jews know this question well. Henry Kissinger: good for the Jews? Brandeis? Koufax? Seinfeld? As an American minority, Jews are naturally sensitive to the way we are perceived, and to the messengers who — without our endorsement or permission — represent us to the world. Likewise…
-
Opinion Giving Women a Voice Is Powerful Message for High Holidays
Each year when I sit in synagogue during Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, I’m struck by the complex stories we read about biblical women and by the wisdom these stories offer about ensuring the dignity of women and girls today. The past year was one of paradoxes. At a time when Sheryl Sandberg, Malala Yousafzai,…
-
Opinion Bill Thompson and 2 Josephs
New York mayoral candidate Bill Thompson’s political tour guides to Hasidic Brooklyn are two guys named Joseph — both famous influence-peddlers with strong community connections and checkered pasts. When he campaigned in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Williamsburg on Labor Day, Thompson was accompanied by Hasidic fixers Joseph Menczer and Joseph Goldberger, the New York Observer…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
Culture ‘My mayor Muslim, my bagel Jewish’ — the Knicks chant capturing New York’s soul
- 2
Opinion The Iran war ended terribly for the US, and even worse for Israel
- 3
Opinion Cultural boycotts of Israel just reached peak absurdity
- 4
Film & TV In ‘Disclosure Day,’ Steven Spielberg finds himself at odds with Jewish thought about aliens
In Case You Missed It
-
News This Jewish activist was arrested and deported for her book ‘Lesbian Love.’ 100 years later, will NYC apologize?
-
Culture Ever the restless spirit, Tel Aviv-born architect and designer Ron Arad is still reinventing himself and his art
-
News New Jewish-Arab political party debuts in Israel, aiming to topple Netanyahu
-
Fast Forward Trump says Syria would do a ‘better job’ of fighting Hezbollah than Israel