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
A Labor Agenda for the 21st Century: Less Work
There are many icons of American labor: the Haymarket martyrs, Cesar Chavez, Joe Hill. But often overlooked are a cartoon pair who taught us a lot about resisting the wage system: Beavis and Butthead. In an episode titled “On Strike,” America’s favorite chuckleheads get inspired by the ongoing baseball strike to start their own work…
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Opinion Kerry to U.S. Jews: Prod Leaders to Back 2 States
Secretary of State Kerry may have crossed a few lines and trod on some toes in his speech to the American Jewish Committee in Washington on Monday. The first half-hour was filled with predictable declarations about his love for Israel, the urgency of peace and the beautiful view from Masada, but his ending was a…
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Opinion When Gorgeous Israeli Soldiers Go Bad on Facebook
When Israeli female soldiers get saucy, some Israelis can’t help but applaud. Columnist Halleli Jabotinsky published newly surfaced photographs on her blog, and declared that they actually performed an “important service” by humanizing the Israeli military and also looked “cute.” In the photographs, which went viral in social media, new recruits exposed their thongs under…
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Opinion Israel Bonds Are Glue That Bind Jewish State and Diaspora
In 1949, Arthur Hertzberg, a young Zionist who later became a renowned historian and an important communal leader, decided to witness with his own eyes the wonders that were taking place in Israel. He traveled to Israel, but to his surprise, instead of a warm welcome his hosts nagged him with a barrage of demanding…
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Opinion Defending My Stephen Hawking Cartoon
I appreciate Hillel Halkin’s passionate response to a cartoon that supports the boycott of Israel, promotes anti-Semitism, and advocates a viewpoint that he insists must not be permitted in a Jewish newspaper. Unfortunately, that is not the cartoon I drew. My cartoon pilloried the absurdity and intellectual vacuity of hasbara, the public relations effort by…
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Opinion What’s a Pro-Boycott Cartoon of Stephen Hawking Doing in a Jewish Paper?
Would America’s best Jewish newspaper publish a cartoon in support of renowned British physicist Stephen Hawking’s joining the academic boycott of Israel? It would — and it did. I can think of no other accurate way of describing the prominently featured appearance in a recent issue of the Forward of Eli Valley’s “A Brief History…
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Opinion London Meat Cleaver Attack Echoes Lessons of Boston Marathon Bombing
Let’s assume that everything we think we know about the recent terror attacks in London and Boston turns out to be true. That the people who carried them out were not actually part of a formal, organized international effort to kill Westerners — that they were not paid a salary by a terror group, or…
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Opinion More Than Memory of Jews in Macedonia
Contemporary Skopje is a slightly strange place. The nationalistic Macedonian government has been throwing money at the capital city in an attempt at beautification, since 80% of Skopje was destroyed by an earthquake in 1963 and had been refashioned in the communistic style with wide avenues and high-rise concrete apartment blocks. The new chosen style,…
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Opinion Shin Bet Film Airs on TV Amid Right-vs.-IDF Tiff
Israel’s state-owned Channel 1 Television aired the first part of a five-part miniseries version of “The Gatekeepers” on Sunday night. That’s the Oscar-nominated Israeli documentary in which all six living ex-directors of the Shin Bet security service criticize the government’s West Bank policies. According to Walla! News, the miniseries will include previously unseen material from…
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Opinion Freud Speaks! Who Does He Remind You Of?
As Father’s Day approaches, I thought it would be fun to visit with three modern Jewish patriarchs. Here are some remarkable bits of tape with voices (one is sound-and-video) from the past that sort of embody the arc of contemporary Jewish thought. Hat tip to Seton Hall theologian and ethicist Rabbi Alan Brill, who got…
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Opinion Let’s Talk About Not Having Sex
I believe in abstinence, at least personally, and I believe in Jewish law. So it makes sense to me that a Jewish organization that promotes both Jewish law and abstinence would create a website dedicated to teenagers and sex. That organization, the National Conference of Synagogue Youth, is the Orthodox Union’s youth movement, and the…
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