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.
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.
Usually when another blogger sufficiently channels my own anger about something that has me piqued, I tend to just try and let it go and give them the last word. And that was my first reaction this morning when I read, with increasing agitation, Jeffrey Goldberg’s post about a new Israeli ad campaign targeted at…
Malki, in October you would have turned 25, if only… if only you hadn’t stopped in at the Sbarro restaurant in the center of Jerusalem with your best friend, Michal, that hot summer afternoon of August 9, 2001. You were on your way to a camp counselors’ meeting but had some time to spare. At…
Last March, this newspaper published a classic example of pinkwashing, which is the concerted effort by supporters of Israel to tout Israel’s excellent LGBT rights record to win support for Israel in general. In their straightforwardly titled piece, “LGBT Activists Should Know Friends From Foes,” Stuart Applebaum and Benjamin Weinthal stated plainly that activists “should…
It was 70 years ago, on December 7, 1941, that Japanese warplanes staged their infamous surprise attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, thrusting America headlong into the cataclysm of World War II. Seventy years is a long time. The sages of the Talmud cited the 70th year as the point where life’s…
Sometimes the biggest news isn’t found in a hot new scoop, but in a recapitulation of a string of things you knew about but hadn’t put together already—or in little details that flesh out a trend you’d heard about, showing you how fast it’s building up. An example of the first: Former labor secretary Robert…
The New York Times has a very good article with a seriously bad headline in this week’s Sunday Review section. The title is “Israel’s Other Occupation.” The topic of the piece is the growing assault against the rights of Arab citizens of Israel, taking place within the borders of pre-1967 Israel. The occupation is the…
A startling new report by investigative journalist Edward Jay Epstein suggests that the arrest of then-International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn on sexual assault charges in New York last May may have been a setup engineered by his political opponents. The article, based among other things on examination of hotel card-key records, cell phone records…
The unpardonable failure of the members of the congressional supercommittee to resolve their differences and actually do what it takes to govern is largely their own fault. Not that many members didn’t embrace the herculian task with rigor and good intentions. Unfortunately, some of the Republicans — and yes, the intransigence was found mostly on…
What is happening in the Knesset? It seems that every week brings forth a new bill that would curtail some aspect of Israel’s democracy. As Carlo Strenger writes in Haaretz today, “It is hard to avoid the impression that the parliamentarians of the 19th Knesset have engaged in a ferocious competition for chauvinism and anti-liberalism.”…
Let’s face it: Once you get past the turkey and stuffing, this whole Thanksgiving business raises as many questions as it answers. We’ve all been hearing since we were kids that this is the great all-American holiday, the one that belongs to everyone regardless of color or creed. Its simple, universal message, we learned, is…
It’s 1939 for the Jews all over again. That, at least, would seem to be the case according to Glenn Beck, who was the keynote speaker at Sunday’s annual gala of the Zionist Organization of America. Using apocalyptic language, the former FOX news commentator said that that Jews have it “worse today” than they did…