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
When Jews Get Embarassed Too Easily
Jews are image conscious. A quick Google search of “embarrassed to be Jewish” will turn up two main hits—Jews ashamed of the state of Israel, and Jews ashamed of the behavior of certain “Hareidim” — tremblers, the Hebrew term for the ultra-Orthodox — in the Israeli town of Beit Shemesh. I should amend that statement:…
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Opinion The Jewish Year Gone By and One To Come
To understand where you’re headed, it’s said, first understand where you’ve been. With that in mind, what can 2012 teach us about 2013? Presidential campaign 2012. Both parties spent prodigiously wooing swing-state Jewish voters, while pundits insisted Jewish votes are insignificant. Consider: Florida’s Jews voted 66% for Obama despite intense GOP efforts (led by Sheldon…
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Letters Abandoned
In two recent columns, on November 16 and December 21, J.J. Goldberg has written of the Senate coalition that consisted of Southern Democrats and conservative Republicans from the prairie and mountain states that blocked efforts to admit Jewish refugees in the 1930s and 1940s. He ignores, however, the actual men who were responsible for these…
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Letters True Help
In his recent piece “Who Benefits From Service Trips?” (November 16), Brent Spodek highlights an issue that has long troubled many of us in the Jewish volunteer world: Sometimes service-learning trips for Jews in their 20s and 30s focus more on cultivating “effective Jewish citizens” than on working with communities that could benefit from volunteer…
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Opinion It’s Shimon vs. Bibi, Again
Israeli President Shimon Peres has locked horns again with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The two men have a troubled relationship, and in the summer had a very tense month after Peres went against Netanyahu’s position on Iran. Speaking to a large gathering of Israeli diplomats, Peres heaped praise on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas — a…
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Opinion Orthodox Jews Face a Moment of Reckoning
After the verdict in the infamous Nechemya Weberman trial was announced, the Satmar community found itself reeling. This story of an unlicensed therapist who for years was sexually abusing a young girl multiple times a week has inflamed our passions to unprecedented levels, and rightfully so. But now that the dust has settled somewhat, it’s…
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Opinion Why and How We Cover Noah Pozner’s Death
Are Jewish journalists exploiting Noah Pozner’s death because he was the only Jewish child killed in the Newtown school massacre? That’s the provocative question raised in a blog post by Simi Lichtman, the associate editor of New Voices magazine and a Forward contributor. And her answer is: yes. Lichtman wrote that she is “more than…
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Opinion We Bid Adieu to 2012
How do we say goodbye to such a year? When we cheered, we voted, we shed a tear. A race for president, a quest for gold, A hurricane that ravaged young and old. Here at the Forward, our yearly review Of Jews in the news in two-oh-one-two Starts with the man who tried to stack…
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Opinion Q&A: Evan Wolfson on Marriage Equality Movement
A long list of characters helped elevate a pair of marriage-equality cases to the Supreme Court, where they’ll be heard in 2013. But if one person deserves credit for the ascent of the marriage-rights movement, it’s Evan Wolfson. In 2003, when even gay people felt it a fringe cause, Wolfson founded Freedom to Marry as…
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Opinion Lukewarm Response to Anti-Palestinian Letter
Congressional efforts to shut down the Palestinian delegation office in Washington have garnered only tepid support. A letter, co-authored by the outgoing and incoming leaders of the House Foreign Affairs Committee from both parties and calling on the President to close the PLO office in Washington, has closed on Friday with only 239 signatures. The…
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Opinion When Thinkers Get It Wrong — And Escape Blame
These waning days of December are traditionally a time for journalists to sum up the events of the past year and choose highlights for your consideration. A favorite approach is to pick winners and losers, but given the year we’ve just had, that doesn’t feel right. Sure, Obama won and Romney lost. Then what? Instead,…
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