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
Going Green With Jill Stein
The Green Party is set to choose a Jewish doctor as its presidential candidate. Jill Stein, 52, will officially receive the third party nomination at a convention this weekend. The Lexington, Mass., resident has no chance of beating Republican Mitt Romney or Democrat Barack Obama at the polls this November. But that doesn’t mean she…
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Opinion Will Olmert Be Back?
Will he, or won’t he? Now that former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has been exonerated on the key corruption charges that forced him out of office four years ago, everyone is asking whether he’ll try to make a political comeback. After all, it has emerged since he left office that he was involved in…
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Opinion Sheldon Wins One Round
A Jewish Democratic attack on billionaire Sheldon Adelson has been scuttled amidst heavy pressure from establishment Jewish groups. The National Jewish Democratic Council announced July 11 that they would pull their petition calling on Mitt Romney to stop accepting funds donated to his election effort by Adelson, the Jewish casino mogul. The move came following…
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Opinion Who Shall Serve?
The issue of a citizen’s responsibility to serve his or her nation, in a military or communal capacity, for how long and under what circumstances, is fraught with both practical concerns and gigantic questions of meaning. As of this writing, Israelis are in full-throated debate over this issue. Americans ought to be. The Israeli debate…
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Opinion Woody Allen Talks Israel, With … (Surprise!) Love
L.A. Jewish Journal publisher Rob Eshman’s campaign to raise funds for Woody Allen to film in Israel has touched off a mini-media flurry over Allen’s merits as an artist and a Jew. Rob notes that Allen “has done much to define the image of ‘Jew’ in our time,” but has never been to Israel “as…
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Opinion The Shul Gap
Nearly 90% of Jews who never attend synagogue voted Democratic in 2008, according to a new analysis of Jewish voting patterns out this week. That’s in sharp contrast to the less than 65% of Jews who attend synagogue at least weekly who voted Democratic that year. Sponsored by a non-partisan group called The Solomon Project,…
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Opinion Father’s Lament for Son Who Should’ve Served
My oldest son, now 19, studies in yeshiva full time. I ask him, almost every day: “When will you do army service?” I say: “A person with an iPhone or laptop should be in the army!” This is my common refrain, one my children have heard so many times at the table on Saturday afternoons…
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Opinion Why Presbyterians Voted Against Divestment
The failed attempt to divest Presbyterian church funds from three corporations selling equipment to the Israeli military came about because of bias among some church members, said the head of the group that led the Jewish push against the resolution. “I think there’s a huge part of the Presbyterian Church that really is not capable…
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Opinion Stopping Violence Against Women
Representative Jan Schakowsky, a Democrat from Illinois, recently sponsored a new bill aimed at curbing violence against women globally. The International Violence Against Women Act of 2012, which was co-sponsored by 47 other Democratic members of Congress, would establish an Office of Global Women’s Issues within the State Department and provide funding for gender-based foreign…
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Opinion The Marketplace for Synagogues
About two-thirds of all Jews don’t belong to a synagogue. Some blame the unaffiliated for not joining; others blame the synagogues for not being interesting enough to join. I blame our system of synagogue membership. Any economist worth his salt would recognize the problem. Synagogue membership is like gym membership. It’s expensive and poorly used,…
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Opinion Olmert Cleared in Case That Unseated Him
Ehud Olmert, whose indictment and resignation in 2008 aborted his peace negotiations with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and opened the way to the deadlock under Benjamin Netanyahu, was found not guilty this morning by the Jerusalem District Court of the main corruption charges that forced his resignation. And aborted the negotiations. The three-judge panel, which…
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Holy Ground A Jewish farmer broke ground on a synagogue in an Illinois cornfield. His neighbors showed up to help.
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Opinion I discovered anti-Zionism at the University of Michigan. I’m glad it lives on there
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Opinion An alarming new battleground in campus fights over Israel
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Culture An Israeli genocide scholar looks to Israel’s history to understand ‘what went wrong’
In Case You Missed It
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Opinion When it comes to Israel/Palestine, everyone is sure that everyone else is a bigot
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Fast Forward Elected PA Jewish judge leaves Democratic party, citing ‘disturbingly common’ antisemitism
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Fast Forward At Abraham Foxman’s funeral, an elegy for the last generation with direct ties to the Holocaust
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Fast Forward Israeli report on ‘systematic’ Oct. 7 sexual violence seeks to shift debate from denial to accountability