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
Watch Kerry, Erekat and Livni on the Road Ahead
Here’s today’s press conference at the State Department. Note how firm and detailed Secretary of State John Kerry was in his 11-minute presentation, how poetic Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni’s 4-minute remarks were (starting at 12:15) and how strikingly brief and downbeat Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat was in his one minute and 10 seconds…
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Opinion Transgender Camp Founder Talks Jewish Summer
Nick Teich is the founder and director of Camp Aranu’tiq, the first summer camp in the United States that caters to transgender and gender-variant youth (that is, children whose gender expression does not conform to conventional ideas of masculinity and femininity). The camp takes its name from an indigenous Alaskan term for a person who…
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Opinion Palestinians Want Vote on Peace Too — But How?
Peace talks are due to properly restart today, but what lies at the end of the road if negotiators are successful? There has been much discussion of the Israeli cabinet’s decision on Sunday to advance legislation to ensure that any peace deal is subject to a referendum. If the legislation passes Knesset, a plebiscite won’t…
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Opinion The American Jewish Way of Death
In August 1963, “The American Way of Death” by Jessica Mitford sold out its first printing on its publication date and topped The New York Times best-seller list for weeks. Inspired by her husband, Robert Treuhaft, a radical Jewish labor lawyer who was an unnamed co-author of the book, Mitford brought a sparkling British wit…
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Opinion Don’t Ban Pamela Geller — It’s Not Jewish Way
The tradition of English liberty which runs through the political culture is a deep one, traceable back to John Milton’s Areopagitica, published in 1644, through Thomas Paine’s The Age of Reason and John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty. The nub of it was best put by Mill when he wrote, “If all mankind minus one, were…
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Opinion Pamela Geller’s Intolerance Crosses Red Line on Bimah
The recent decisions by a synagogue in Great Neck and another outside of Toronto to cancel appearances by anti-Islam activist Pamela Geller — both were rescheduled at other venues — have made headlines in the Jewish press and raised interesting questions for the Jewish community. There are important issues at stake here. They are not…
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Opinion The Issues the Peace Process Should Avoid
Let’s set aside for a moment all the familiar reasons why renewed peace talks won’t work. We know that Palestinian negotiators can’t “deliver” the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. And we know that Benjamin Netanyahu can’t “deliver” his own coalition or even his own party, both of which are dominated by politicians who oppose a two-state solution….
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Opinion Kerry’s Bond With Top Aide and a Legendary Dad
Two intriguing backgrounders from the Hebrew press about Secretary of State John Kerry and his Israeli-Palestinian peace mission. One, by Yediot Ahronot veteran Washington correspondent Orly Azoulai in the Friday supplement (print, Hebrew only) contrasts Kerry’s intense commitment to the peace effort with President Obama’s utter skepticism. Obama lets Kerry have his way, she writes,…
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Opinion Jewish Roots of Canada Store Merger
The $12.4 billion merger of Canada’s biggest grocery chain and the country’s largest pharmacy has Jewish roots. The purchase of Shoppers Drug Mart by Loblaw’s will create “a homegrown juggernaut in the face of stiffer competition from the consolidation of existing players and the entry of a major U.S. retailer,” the Globe and Mail said….
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Opinion Who Says You Need Day School?
Recently I’ve read several pieces in which Jewish parents expressed their belief that day school is critically necessary to raising their children as Jews — and that without it, there would be no certainty that their children would maintain a firm footing in the Jewish world. One mother even wrote that she had decided to…
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Opinion Could Kerry Be the One?
In certain circles, it is fashionable to dismiss John Kerry, typically by casting him as naïve, Pollyannaish. That is a major mischaracterization. Whether his current apparent success in getting the Israelis and the Palestinians to meet together bears fruit or not, Kerry is an immensely capable man with a distinguished public record that stretches back…
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