Opinion

• Opinion

  A Blessing at the End

  ‘Doing Jewish” is a nice little catch phrase, but it doesn’t begin to cover the stunningly diverse ways in which America’s Jews in fact go about the doing of Jewish. The words call to people’s minds, say, the activities of the Anti-Defamation League or of their own local synagogue or Jewish community center, perhaps their…

  By Leonard Fein

  2 min read
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  Opinion

  Lena Dunham: First Time (Voting) Should Be Special

  Sarah Silverman isn’t the only funny Jewish lady making suggestive political videos for Obama. Now comes Lena Dunham, creator of the buzzy HBO show “Girls,” with a video about her first time…voting. “You want to do it with a great guy,” Dunham says. “You want to do it with a guy who brought the troops…

  By Josh Nathan-Kazis Oct 26, 2012 | < 1 min read
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  Opinion

  Lingo of the Sarah Silverman Controversy

  The Jewish Press set off a firestorm last week when it published An Open Letter to Sarah Silverman by Rabbi Yaakov Rosenblatt. The Orthodox author criticized the comedian’s politics, vulgar presentation style, and the fact that she remains childless. As a linguist, what I found most interesting about this article was the language. By looking…

  By Sarah Bunin Benor Oct 26, 2012 | 4 min read

Columnists View All

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

  

• Jay Michaelson I supported Israel’s actions in Gaza in October 2023 — not anymore

  

• Rob Eshman The staggering hypocrisy behind Trump’s deal to free the last living American hostage

  

• Nora Berman How the Oct. 7 aftermath splintered the New York Dyke March

  

• Dan Perry It looks like Israel totally underestimated Trump

  

• Emily Tamkin This week proved it: Trump’s approach to antisemitism at Columbia is horribly ineffective

  

The Latest

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  Opinion

  What Readers Think About the Election

  With so much attention on the Jewish vote in this presidential election, the Forward this week asked readers to register their thoughts in three successive polls. We don’t pretend that this web-based exercise is as valid as whatever Gallup or CNN does in the field, nor is our analysis up to Nate Silver’s standards. But…

  By Jane Eisner Oct 26, 2012 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  The 3 Unspoken Issues of 2012 Vote

  For all the presidential candidates’ talk of jobs, jobs and more jobs, voters face three other decisions that loom much larger. After all, poor economic policies can be changed in four years. The effects of these three decisions will stay with us for a long, long time — in one case for at least a…

  By J.J. Goldberg Oct 26, 2012 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Bibi-Liberman End Run vs. 2 States: The Odds

  Israel’s political map is about to upended when Netanyahu and Liberman go on television at 2 p.m. Eastern time to announce a joint Knesset run. They’re apparently not merging their parties but forming a joint list. The aim is to ensure that Bibi ends up with the largest Knesset bloc after the January 22 elections,…

  By J.J. Goldberg Oct 25, 2012 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Anti-African Crackdown Ruled Illegal

  Fear spread across Israel’s illegal immigrants from Sudan last summer. As the Forward reported, it has seemed in recent days like the Interior Ministry’s deadline was looming and they would soon be imprisoned. In August he announced plans to jail all Sudanese illegals without trial starting on October 15 and was expected to get underway…

  By Nathan Jeffay Oct 25, 2012 | < 1 min read
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  Opinion

  Inequality Hurts Us All

  Biblical Judaism knew what to do about income inequality: observe the sh’mitah, the sabbatical year. Every seven years, according to the laws of Leviticus, debts are to be forgiven and all agricultural activities — plowing, planting, pruning and harvesting — are to be suspended. The gap between rich and poor, those who have and those…

  Oct 25, 2012 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Jack Lew’s Shabbat Helper

  When Jack Lew was appointed chief of staff to President Obama in January, many in the Jewish community wondered how he could observe Shabbat in such a demanding position. Luckily, Lew has the most powerful man in the world to keep track of time as the sun starts to dip low in the sky on…

  By Nathan Guttman Oct 25, 2012 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  The Forward’s Election Poll: Jewish Issues

  What do you think about the presidential election? We want to hear your opinions on a number of topics, so answer today’s question. We’ll have a new question waiting for you each night this week and a final roundup blog post on Friday. In our second question, we asked readers which issues matter most to…

  By Forward Staff Oct 24, 2012 | < 1 min read
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  Opinion

  Dan Senor Is No Neocon

  After Monday’s debate, many took note of the way in which Mitt Romney shifted his foreign policy towards what constitutes the center on Syria, Afghanistan, and Iran. It was as if the previous ten months or so had never happened, with The New York Times editorial page suggesting that Romney now “does not actually have…

  By Liam Hoare Oct 24, 2012 | 2 min read