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
Warts and All, Protests Was Israel at its Best
Shortly before landing in Tel Aviv in late August, the person in the airplane seat next to mine, a young, smart Israeli just awarded an Oxford post-doc, told me he was no longer convinced that Israel would last for more than another 50 or 60 years. By no means did he seem morbid: He had…
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Opinion Shin Bet on Mosque Fire: ‘Jewish Terror.’ Chief Rabbi: ‘It Means Nothing’
The Jerusalem Post reports today that Sunday’s torching of a Galilee mosque, believed by authorities to be the work of right-wing Jewish extremists, appears to be the latest sign that Jewish terrorism is “gaining steam” in Israel. The Post’s military correspondent, Yaakov Katz (bio) says the Shin Bet security service is worried that the phenomenon…
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Opinion Opposing Statehood Bid, Supporting a New Path to Peace
At college campuses across the country this fall, students are lining up on one side or the other of the most current fault line in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: To support the Palestinian statehood bid, or not? Lines have been drawn, talking points distributed. The narratives of each side are familiar, as each makes the case…
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Opinion British Union Chooses Sanctions Over Israeli Workers
The British Trades Union Congress this September passed a resolution reaffirming its position against the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. There’s nothing wrong with, or unusual about, left-wing trade unionists showing solidarity with the dispossessed. What is unusual — and troubling — is the line dictating that TUC affiliates review their bilateral relations with all…
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Opinion Who Shall Die?
According to Amnesty International, the United States ranked fifth in the world in the number of its citizens who were executed in 2010. And what company we keep! China, Iran, North Korea and Yemen bested us in this dubious competition, but at least we beat out Saudi Arabia. How’s that for American exceptionalism? Ever since…
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Opinion More Miracles from the Holy Land: Divers Find Life in the Dead Sea
A team of scientific researcher-divers has discovered what may be the ultimate oxymoron: life at the bottom of the Dead Sea. National Geographic has an amazing report on the expedition, said to be the first-ever scientific dive to the depths of the world’s lowest spot. What they found was a series of craters on the…
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Opinion Has Obama Lost the Jews? Don’t Ask the Polls
President Obama got an unpleasant New Year’s greeting from the American Jewish Committee just before Rosh Hashanah: A survey of American Jewish opinion showing his job performance got a failing grade from a plurality of Jews for the first time in his presidency. It may be the lowest Jewish rating for a Democratic president since…
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Opinion Fast and Famine
For many American Jews, the Yom Kippur fast is a vehicle of both repentance and connection. We focus inward on our personal failings, and outward toward a world where hunger is a constant, not a 25-hour interruption in lives of bounty. A fast is not a famine, but a fast can at least prompt us…
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Opinion Shelly Yachimovich’s Election Marks New Era in Israeli Politics
With the election of Shelly Yachimovich to head Israel’s Labor Party, two major political parties are led by women for the first time in the country’s history. This is an encouraging development not only because it helps advance gender fairness in Israeli society, but also because it potentially signals a new era for Israeli politics,…
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Letters Do It Together
Jay Michaelson writes in his September 16 column of his delight and empowerment in D.I.Y. — Do it Yourself — Judaism. While he acknowledges that Judaism has always been a tradition of direct access, where we are “each responsible for our own religious lives,” he writes, “only a small minority of non-Orthodox Jews live this…
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Opinion The Registry of What?
After a week of disappointing speeches at the United Nations, each – Obama, Abbas, Netanyahu – distinctly graceless, plus a debate of nine would-be Republican presidential nominees, including Doc Gingrich, Grumpy Ron Paul, Dopey Michelle Bachmann, Sneezy Santorum and Happy Herman Cain and five more dwarfs (but no Bashful), to say nothing of the slide…
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Culture ‘My mayor Muslim, my bagel Jewish’ — the Knicks chant capturing New York’s soul
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Books In ‘Something We Said,’ Richard Pryor’s daughter finds words to discuss the unspeakable
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Opinion It’s time for Jews who love Israel to give up on Zionism
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News How Iran is outsourcing terror plots against Jews
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Fast Forward Helen Mirren criticizes Israel at film festival after being called ‘evil Zionist’ in viral video
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Fast Forward After dozens of Jewish girls get lost in NY creek tunnel, antisemitic comments follow online
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Yiddish דער קאַמף צװישן טראַדיציע און רעװאָלוציע אין סאָװעטיש־ייִדישער קולטור The battle between tradition and revolution in Soviet-Yiddish culture
סאָװעטיש־ייִדיש איז געװען אַ ראַדיקאַלער עקספּערימענט, װאָס פֿאַרנעמט אַ װיכטיקן פּלאַץ אױף דער װעלטמאַפּע פֿון ייִדישער קולטור
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News A Jewish nonprofit was training men to prevent sexual abuse. Then the funding disappeared