Opinion

• Opinion

  Obvious Flaw of Times ‘Third Intifada’ Story

  Ali Gharib’s rather long tirade against my recent blog post in the Forward on Ben Ehrenreich’s New York Times magazine story deserves a brief response. The story about Nabi Saleh was framed in the context of a Palestinian village testing “the limits of unarmed resistance.” Those were the words Times’ editors placed on the cover…

  By Jane Eisner

  2 min read
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  Opinion

  Faded Hunk David Hasselhoff Leads Fight To Save Berlin Wall

  My generation knows him as the hunk from Baywatch, while my children’s generation knows him as “The Hasselhoff” from The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie. Both generations in Germany, however, know him, as “The Hoff”: the pop singer who in 1989 belted out “Looking for Freedom” at the newly breached wall. It is in this latest role…

  By Robert Zaretsky Mar 19, 2013 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  A Statement on Your Seder Plate

  Passover always feels both repetitious and fresh. Every year we are asked to tell the story of enslavement and redemption anew, asked to go through the same motions, dip our fingers in the wine again the same number of times. But there is another imperative — not just to remember our own historic moment of…

  By Gal Beckerman Mar 19, 2013 | 2 min read

Columnists View All

• Jodi Rudoren This is my last column as editor of the Forward

  

• Jay Michaelson American Jews were played — now what?

  

• Rob Eshman There’s a shocking new report on civilian deaths in Gaza. If only it were accurate.

  

• Nora Berman Is Netflix’s new show the most Jewish cartoon ever?

  

• Dan Perry Israel is not deliberately killing journalists in Gaza. But it does bear responsibility for their deaths

  

• Emily Tamkin Trump’s attack on George Soros is ludicrous. It also endangers Jews (and everyone else)

  

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  Opinion

  Welcome, Kitniyot

  A few weeks before the first Seder, the Orthodox Union announced a new symbol of authorization for Passover products: OU Kitniyot. This has more than culinary significance. It can be seen as a welcome step in diminishing the divisions within the Jewish people. Kitniyot are one of the main dividing lines. Sephardic Jews will consume…

  Mar 19, 2013 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  An Orange on Plate for Women — And Spit Out Seeds of Hate

  Passover was high drama in my childhood. Preparations began weeks in advance, with meticulous scrubbing, shopping and organizing. Strong emotions came out in the days before the holiday, when every crumb of hametz had to be removed, and we had to tread very carefully. One mistake could bring calamity. When we finally sat down for…

  By Susannah Heschel Mar 19, 2013 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Yeshiva Rabbi and the Jewish N-Word

  I am lucky to have never heard the word nigger used towards me. As a black woman in the United States this is rare, even rarer since I spent the majority of my childhood summers in rural North Carolina with my mother’s family. I have vivid memories of riding in the back of my uncle’s…

  By Erika Davis Mar 18, 2013 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  New Israeli Defense Chief: Tough-talking Hardliner

  Ynet.co.il, the news site associated with Yediot Ahronot, has a profile of incoming Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon (known since his youth by the nickname “Boogy”). It’s important reading, so I’ve translated it below. Here’s the background that’s not in the profile: Born Moshe Smilansky in 1950, raised in suburban Haifa, he was active in the…

  By J.J. Goldberg Mar 18, 2013 | 8 min read
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  Opinion

  Real Non-Violence Doesn’t Look Like This

  My husband has long argued that if the Palestinians really wanted a state side-by-side with Israel, all they would have to do is adopt a nationwide, non-violent strategy. Peaceful demonstrations up and down the West Bank, continuously, steadfastly, would prick the world’s consciousness and give Israeli and Palestinian leaders no choice but to negotiate and…

  By Jane Eisner Mar 18, 2013 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  The Movement To Rebrand Discrimination as ‘Religious Freedom’

  ‘Religious liberty” is the new “family values.” That’s the conclusion of a new, exhaustive, 30,000-word report just released by the think-tank Political Research Associates and prepared by this writer. There is a covert, well-coordinated, heavily financed campaign to reframe questions of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality, as well as reproductive rights, into claims that…

  By Jay Michaelson Mar 18, 2013 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Put Olive on Seder Plate for Palestinians and All Oppressed Peoples

  Jews who want to challenge the community use foods as a way symbolizing those challenges on the most heartfelt of Jewish rituals: the Passover seder. Each day, we will examine a different food and what it means. Passover has always been my favorite Jewish holiday. Even as a child, I remember being slightly embarrassed that…

  By Rebecca Vilkomerson Mar 18, 2013 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  David Brooks Only Wrote About the Orthodox 1%

  Probably no more than the top 10 percent of Brooklyn’s Orthodox Jews will ever shop at Pomegranate, the luxury kosher supermarket recently featured by The New York Times columnist David Brooks in a column titled “The Orthodox Surge.” Brooks chose the upscale kosher version of Whole Foods as the fulcrum of an admiring piece on…

  By Shai Franklin (JTA) Mar 17, 2013 | 3 min read