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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Letters
Independent Bookstores Are Still Alive
The article about the new owners of the Washington bookstore, Politics and Prose, includes an unfortunate line: “the age of independent bookstores seems to have closed” (“Coveted by Jewish Bidders, D.C. Bookstore Finds New Owners,” April 8). The vigor of Politics and Prose and its many prospective purchasers, as reported in your story, belies that…
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Letters Getting it Backward on Hebron
I am writing concerning the April 1 opinion article “The ‘A-word’ in Hebron” by Letty Cottin Pogrebin. I was deeply offended by it. I think she has things backward. The separation is because Palestinians won’t let Jews live in Hebron without an Israeli military presence. And let’s remember that Hebron is holy to both Muslims…
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Letters Open Versus Closed Societies
This is in reply to the comments of Iain Levine of Human Rights Watch in your March 30 article “HRW Founder Charts Another Way to Probe Human Rights.” There is no basis for his claim that I urge human rights organizations to refrain from investigating complaints of war crimes. When I chaired HRW, we pioneered…
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Opinion Reform’s Distracting War Over Politics
The nomination of Rabbi Rick Jacobs as president of the Union for Reform Judaism has unintentionally started what could become a divisive and even destructive internal conflict within the Reform movement. Rabbi Jacobs’s association with what are perceived to be left-wing organizations have Reform Jews with conservative or even moderate political views on Israel fearing…
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Opinion After Bin Laden, Unity Might Not Be Fleeting
The death of Osama Bin Laden has a lot of folks talking about a new feeling of national unity, a sense that we’ve suddenly been granted leave for the first time in a long time to feel like one nation instead of warring tribes. How long it will last is anybody’s guess. Nobody is taking…
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Opinion A Spring Visit to Israel
A journalist friend tells me I am wrong to talk of “a Tel Aviv bubble,” a common expression that refers to the quite distinctive café society of Israel’s megalopolis and also implies, dismissively, that Tel Aviv separates itself from the Israeli hinterland, is more open, more casual, sexier, more — well, more Mediterranean. But my…
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Opinion Should Bin Laden Have Faced a Judge?
When I heard the news that Osama bin Laden had been killed, I was in the middle of an author’s tour for my recent book on the Eichmann trial. It was impossible not to immediately see the parallels between the fates of these two mass murderers, who both ended up in watery graves: While bin…
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Opinion A Tale of Two Brothers
If you’ve felt embarrassed by Israel lately, what follows might really offend you. But first, a parable. Two brothers live on distant continents. Aaron, the elder, makes a good living as a corporate lawyer, finding fulfillment in his family and hobbies. Joshua, the younger, chose a much harder path as a novelist, chasing an artistic…
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Opinion Pride and Justice
We feel safer today. Not completely safe, but safer. Osama bin Laden’s death does not eradicate al Qaeda, nor does it eliminate the terrorist threat from this virulent network of violent radicals. It may, in fact, make the United States and its allies, notably Israel, more vulnerable to revenge attacks in the coming days and…
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Opinion Fatah Spokesman: ‘Bin-Laden’s Elimination Is Good for the Peace Process’
The statement by Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh mourning Ben-Laden and condemning his killing is getting a lot of internet traffic. It’s instructive; optimists make much of the group’s occasional hints at softening and its conflicts with Al Qaeda. Worth remembering that it still sees itself as part of Jihad International. Here is Ynetnews.com’s report…
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Opinion Bin Laden Dead: Some Thoughts About Celebrating, and About the Region (updated)
Two big nights in a row for Obama – White House correspondents’ dinner followed by the bin Laden press conference. In the TV chatter after the announcement, NBC reported that the big lead had come from Pakistani intelligence last. I passed it along in the initial version of this blog post. This morning, as I…
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