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
The Undeserving Poor?
Americans have long debated whether the poor are worthy of our help. Most people don’t put it that way, of course, because it seems cruel or, at very the least, inappropriate. But the question flows through the public discourse whenever proposals for reforming public welfare come before Congress, or an extension of housing benefits is…
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Opinion Catholic League’s E-Feud With Rabbi Waskow
The Catholic League has ideas about where one leftist rabbi’s nose should be. “[Y]ou have stuck your nose in where you don’t belong,” Catholic League president Bill Donohue told Rabbi Arthur Waskow in a private email exchange leaked to Buzzfeed. In particular, Donohue thinks Waskow should keep out of the controversies over a Vatican crackdown…
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Opinion How Do You Say ‘Purple’ in Hebrew?
You can’t say Alice Walker doesn’t put her money where her mouth is. The news that the Pulitzer-prize winning American novelist has refused to authorize a Hebrew-language translation of her landmark novel “The Color Purple” comes as little surprise. She has been involved for decades in pro-Palestinian activism. Initially drawn to the cause after the…
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Opinion Olympic Spirit Calls for Memorial
Recently, I sat with my sons in our Tel Aviv apartment and watched a documentary about the massacre at the Munich Olympic Games in 1972. Five days before the end of the games, eight Palestinian terrorists from the group Black September broke into the Olympic Village, killing two Israelis and taking nine others hostage. The…
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Opinion Peter David, Journalist and Middle East Thinker
Peter David was probably the most important Middle East thinker about whom you’ve probably never heard. The Economist’s Washington bureau chief and author of the paper’s Lexington column, David died in a car crash on May 10 at the age of 60. During his long career at the magazine, he became its resident expert on…
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Opinion Forward 1, Hungary 0
Elie Wiesel announced today his decision to renounce a Hungarian state award he received in 2004. Hungary has been “whitewashing” its fascist history during World War II, Wiesel said, including attempting to rebury the ashes of a writer, Jozsef Nyiro, a member of the notorious pro-Nazi Arrow Cross, in his native Transylvania. As Wiesel put…
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Opinion Too Much Israel in a Queens Race?
How big a role should Israel play in a local election in Queens? Not very, New York City Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley argued during a debate last night between the candidates vying for the Democratic nomination in New York’s Sixth Congressional District. The NY-6 race pits State Assemblyman Rory Lancman against State Assemblywoman Grace Meng and…
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Opinion Jews Failed to Spot Hitler’s Menace
In the very early 1920s, when Adolf Hitler was still only a local rabble rouser in Munich, two men from Munich’s American consulate made a point of observing his rallies: Robert Murphy, the young acting consul, and Paul Drey, a German employee who was a member of a distinguished Bavarian Jewish family. “Do you think…
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Opinion Are New York Jews Abandoning Obama?
New York’s Jews aren’t overwhelmingly pro-Obama. That’s one finding in a poll released last week by Siena College, and backed up by months of similar reports from the same organization. The monthly survey of New York State voters breaks out the Jewish vote from the non-Jewish vote. The sample size of Jews is small, fewer…
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Opinion Israel’s Best Friends
‘I am obligated to uphold the law and preserve the settlements, and I say here that there is no contradiction between the two.” Anyone aware of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement in early June can be forgiven a despairing reaction. Only the prime minister and the dwindling number of supporters of Israel’s settlement enterprise…
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Opinion Where Is Class Consciousness?
An absolute precondition for class warfare is class consciousness. And one of the great mysteries of American history is that with just a few transient exceptions, there has been near zero class consciousness here. Or, more precisely: The very rich have been well aware of their class privilege and have labored mightily to protect and…
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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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Fast Forward Jewish students wanted to bring J Street to Sarah Lawrence. Why did the student senate say no?
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Fast Forward Jewish Republican Paul Singer tarred with rainbow Star of David in Kentucky candidate’s anti-LGBTQ ad
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Culture Jack Kirby finally gets his corner of the city that made him super
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Opinion When it comes to Israel/Palestine, everyone is sure that everyone else is a bigot