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
Researchers Feud Over Jewish Genes
Are Jews genetically homogenous? Though it’s certainly been a loaded question historically, the quandary has been the domain of scientists for a number of years now, all of whom have pretty much come up with the same answer: yes. But that was before Eran Elhaik entered the picture. An Israeli molecular geneticist, Elhaik is interested,…
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Opinion Jewish Lessons of Murder in Greenwich Village
Mark Carson was a 32-year-old gay man in New York City, who happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. The place is one familiar to many New Yorkers: the busy corner of 6th Avenue and 8th Street, in Greenwich Village. Just two blocks from the famous Stonewall Inn, Carson talked back…
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Opinion What ‘Jews a Race’ Debate Means for Israel
The persistent debate over the “racial” origins of the Jewish people makes a mockery of scholarship, trivializes history and perpetuates conceptions of identity that have been misused to justify everything from violent repression to affirmative action. It is hardly surprising that Johns Hopkins’s Eran Elhaik “stirred up a hornet’s nest of controversy,” as the Forward…
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Opinion ‘War’ With Ultra-Orthodox Over Western Wall? Bring It On
My first reaction to the ugly confrontation at the Western Wall on Friday was to be appalled and sickened. Attacks carried out mostly by ultra-Orthodox men, who heckled, shouted, and threw things at approximately 100 members of Women of the Wall attempting to pray at Judaism’s most sacred site, were a chillul Hashem, a desecration…
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Opinion How the Trinity Impacted Judaism — via Kabbalah
If you don’t follow Philologos, the Forward’s inimitable language columnist, you’re missing one of the outstanding intellectual joys in contemporary Jewish life. I don’t say that idly. Week after week for 20-plus years, with an astonishing combination of erudition, curiosity and wit, he’s used readers’ inquiries into the origins of words and phrases to explore…
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Opinion Who’s Touting a 1-State Plan? Fatah? Guess Again!
Fresh from her controversial April 3 paean to Palestinian stone-throwing, Haaretz’s Ramallah-based bad girl Amira Hass is making new waves with her Friday May 17 report about a group of “senior Fatah members” (the headline called them “senior officials”) who are calling for “the establishment of one democratic country in the area between the Mediterranean…
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Opinion Why Can’t Israelis and Palestinians Both Be Right?
A new study published by The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and reported in The New York Times on May 14, informs us that (1) “For years, scientists and engineers have noticed an increase in river flows when the trees along the streams are removed. The water in the soil, which would otherwise…
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Opinion Reform Rabbi Urges Hebrew Union College To Reconsider Decision on Intermarriage
An open letter to the board of governors of Hebrew Union College — Jewish Institute of Religion: I am writing to urge you to reconsider the HUC-JIR requirement that all prospective rabbinical students sign an agreement that “any student engaged, married, or partnered/committed to a person who is not Jewish by birth or conversion will…
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Opinion Alas, Poor GOP: 3 D.C. Scandals That Weren’t
Besides throwing the Obama administration off its stride, the three scandals roiling Washington and the 24-hour cable news channels have one thing in common: They’re shrinking steadily as more information becomes available. The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein ably deconstructs them in his Wonkblog: the IRS-Tea Party scandal involves a group of employees in the IRS…
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Opinion Israel’s Doing Poor-ly
Israel has the highest poverty rate in the developed world. Some 21% of Israelis were poor as of 2010, more than in any of the other 33 members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, its new report reveals. Compare this figure with where Israel stood in 2000 and the picture is stark —…
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Opinion Israel’s Shas, Right-Wing Kingmaker Party, Takes Sharp Turn to Left
Barely four months after the political earthquake of the January 22 Knesset elections, Israeli politics are about to undergo another seismic shift. This one will bring less drama, but it just might have a deeper impact on the system. The catalyst is Arye Deri, the onetime Haredi wunderkind and convicted felon, who returned on May…
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Fast Forward Vance says ‘religious liberty is a Christian concept.’ Where does that leave Jews?
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