In the Forward’s opinion section, you’ll find analysis and essays from diverse corners of the Jewish world.
To pitch an opinion piece, email our Opinion Editor, Talya Zax.
Opinion
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Opinion
Push Russia on Human Rights
It has now been 38 years since President Ford signed the historic Jackson-Vanik Amendment, a piece of legislation that will soon expire. At this moment, as the future of the amendment is under debate in Congress, it is important to look back at the role it served as one of the most potent weapons for…
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Opinion Obama Drops In on Mofaz
President Obama seems to be perfecting the art of drop-in diplomacy, at least when it comes to Jewish and Israeli leaders. Obama, in recent weeks, took the liberty of dropping into the meetings White House officials held with Jewish Conservative and Orthodox leaders. Then last Thursday he popped into a meeting National Security Adviser Tom…
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Opinion The Benefits of ‘Free’
Recently in these pages, David Bryfman warned about the danger of giving away various things in order to facilitate Jewish continuity in an age of assimilation. The Taglit-Birthright trips, which allow young Jews to go to Israel for 10 days are probably the best-known examples, but Jewish communities are experimenting with numerous other ones. Two…
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Opinion Beyond Gee-Whiz Figures in Population Study
Most of the conversation surrounding that new survey of New York’s Jewish population, released in early June by UJA-Federation of New York, has been focused on its two big, gee-whiz numbers: the one-third of Jews in the region (40% in New York City proper) who are Orthodox and the 20% who are poor. It’s understandable…
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Opinion Exploiting Jewish Fear on Iran
Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav famously said that the main thing is never to be at all afraid. The revered rabbi was wrong. It is madness never to be afraid at all. We need to know whether to hide from the wolves, to slay them, or in some other way defend against them. That said, it…
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Letters Walk and Talk
As your June 15 editorial put it, “Why Stop at the Big Gulp?” Indeed. Mindful of the sad three ‘D’s of living in urban poverty, diabetes, drugs and depression, why can’t we see from our leafy suburban perches the obvious but unspoken reality that individuals and familes in our cities are living under siege, cooped…
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Letters The Other Jews
I don’t live in New York (I live in the Boston area), but one thing that really struck me about the survey reported on in your June 22 article, “Changing Face of New York Jewry,” was its adherence to the categories of Reform-Conservative-Orthodox, and the lumping of all other Jews in a category of “unaffiliated”…
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Letters Homeland Security
The Forward’s June 5 story, “Jews Face Special Risks, Napolitano Says,” is commendable for its clear assessment of the Department of Homeland Security’s Nonprofit Security Grant Program. The purpose of NSGP is to support nonprofit organizations that are at increased risk of terrorist threats and to integrate nonprofit preparedness activities with broader state and local…
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Opinion American Jews Should Get Under the Tent
In early June, more than 10,000 Israelis took to the streets on a Saturday night chanting “Bring back hope and justice,” in a resurgence of 2011’s protests against income inequality, shrinking social programs and the crisis of politicians driven more by self-preservation than by the needs of the country’s citizens. “We don’t want a government…
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Opinion Rocky Start to GOP Orthodox Outreach
The nascent alliance between the ultra-Orthodox and the Republican Party that some analysts say could revolutionize New York state politics is getting off to a rocky start. UPDATE: Click through for Yossi Gestetner’s response. That’s the takeaway from the drama over Yossi Gestetner, the Hasidic political operative who abruptly resigned from his position directing Jewish…
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Opinion Lipa Schmeltzer’s Uncanny Valley
I think I’ve figured out why I find Lipa Schmeltzer’s anti-Internet-rally-meets-Lady Gaga music video so engrossingly weird. And it’s not just the break-dancing Hasidic robots. Lipa’s video is weird for the same reason that Tom Hanks looks strange in Polar Express and that this android is really creepy. That reason: Schmeltzer’s “Hang Up The Phone”…
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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’
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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