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
Five Years Later, Everyone Is Behind Gilad Shalit
At a time when it’s painfully difficult to find any sort of unanimity in the Jewish community with regard to Israel, the outpouring of concern from across the political spectrum for one sad-eyed serviceman provides a poignant place for common ground. On the fifth anniversary of his capture by Hamas everyone, it seems, is publicly…
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Opinion Ouch: Israel Probes Matisyahu and Sarah Silverman for Signs of Jewish Life
Shimon Peres apparently thought when he convened his Israeli Presidential Conference this week in Jerusalem that he could bring together several hundred cutting-edge thinkers and doers in the fields of technology, economics, international relations and Jewish thought to interact, share, clash and perhaps create something new, with a few thousand bright people sitting on the…
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Opinion Will the Real Daniel Gordis Please Stand Up?
Rabbi Daniel Gordis, I’m told, is perhaps the single most popular speaker on Israel to American Jewish audiences. He moved to Israel in 1998, after serving as founding dean of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, and in Jerusalem he serves as senior vice president of the…
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Opinion The Conversion Debate Gets Fiery in Jerusalem
The Israeli Presidential Conference, Shimon Peres’s vanity international blabfest, continues today with a series of panel discussions on the woes of the global economy and the future of the Jewish people. I don’t think we’ve solved the world’s economic problems, but there have been a few bombshells dropped into the field of Jewish identity. The…
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Opinion Peres’s Big Ideas, Tzipi Livni’s Raw Politics, Sarah Silverman’s Low Humor
Shimon Peres likes to bill his Israeli Presidential Conference, the star-studded international talkfest that he’s convening in Jerusalem this week for the third time (the previous ones were in 2008 and 2009) as a Davos-style gathering of great minds to consider the great issues of the day. And it is that, in part. But like…
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Letters Strengthening Jewish Education
Debra Nussbaum Cohen’s June 24 article (“Major Effort To Promote Day Schools Shows Mixed Results”) captured the vital importance of day schools and the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education’s critical role in strengthening them as a major community asset. The business of Jewish day schools is not just a numbers game. Rather, it’s about…
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Letters Jews and Tea
As a survey specialist who has been involved in several dozen political and demographic studies of American Jews, I read with great interest Nathan Guttman’s June 14 article, “Are Jews Warming to the Tea Party?” The piece uses the results of a recent poll to suggest that Jews might be increasingly drawn to that mouthpiece…
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Letters The Origins of Cream Cheese
Leah Koenig (and Gil Marks whom she used as her source) have, through no fault of their own, contributed to perpetuating the myth of cream cheese’s origin and development in America. (“Deconstructing Cheesecake,” June 10th). My forthcoming article in the journal, Food, Culture and Society, puts to rest these myths. Cream cheese was not “accidentally…
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Letters What About the Palestinians?
Eric Alterman is entitled to his opinion (“The Republicans Heart Netanyahu,” June 17), but to my mind Benjamin Netanyahu was not sticking his finger in the eye of the American president nor playing patsy to the Republicans. Truthfully, it was high time to react vehemently to the timing of the administration’s call to “negotiate.” It…
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Opinion Fighting Off Israeli Isolation With a Dose of Bob Dylan and Shakira
If you’re one of those people who tries to follow the news out of Israel, late June probably found you feeling anxious about the impending launch of the next Gaza protest flotilla. You’re worried about a repeat of the May 2010 fiasco, when the Israeli navy boarded a Turkish protest ship to enforce Israel’s Gaza…
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Opinion ‘Who Is a Jew?’ Again?!
On the emotional, bedeviling issue of “Who is a Jew?” in Israel, there’s been a small but welcome move toward Jewish reconciliation and an infuriating roadblock put in the way of further progress. First, the good news, because that’s a precious commodity on this subject. After months and months of negotiations, the Ministry of the…
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In Case You Missed It
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Yiddish ווידעאָ: היסטאָריקערין וויווי לאַקס באַשרײַבט געשיכטע פֿון לאָנדאָנער ייִדישער פּרעסעVIDEO: Historian Vivi Laks tells history of the London Yiddish Press
שבֿע צוקער פֿירט דעם שמועס מיט וויווי לאַקס און ביידע לייענען פֿאָר עטלעכע פֿעליעטאָנען פֿון יענע צײַטן.
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Yiddish World Puppet Monty Pickle is guest on the Forward’s ‘Yiddish Word of the Day’
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Culture We tried to fix Hallmark’s Hanukkah problem. Here’s the movie we made instead
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Fast Forward Holocaust survivor event features a Rob Reiner video address — recorded just weeks before his death
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