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
-
Opinion
Demography as Destiny: Israel’s Growing Right Shapes Law, Military
The increasingly progressive Atlantic Monthly correspondent and former Forward staffer Jeffrey Goldberg (for the last time, no, we’re not the same person) posted a link on his blog Tuesday to an online essay — which he called “hard to disagree with” — by senior research fellow Hussein Ibish of the American Task Force on Palestine….
-
Opinion Liberate the Letter, Pt 2
On October 26, 1960, just days before Election Day, the two candidates for president issued statements commemorating the 170th anniversary of George Washington’s letter on religious pluralism to the Jews of Newport, R.I. The Republican, Vice President Richard Nixon, delivered his remarks in person, quoting from the letter’s definition of “toleration” and noting with pride…
-
Opinion Senate Dems to Jews: How About a Little Help?
Things got a little testier than usual on Capitol Hill July 13 when the Senate Democrats held their annual midsummer get-together with Jewish organizational leaders to discuss next year’s legislative priorities. The Jewish leaders were expecting their traditional hug. What they got was more of a spanking. Most years, the hour-long powwow features senators nodding…
Columnists View All
The Latest
-
Opinion A World Where Jews Have No Safe Houses
Not so long ago, Jews everywhere understood the bottom-line benefit of being Jewish. They may have put it differently, but in the end it was this: To be Jewish means you have safe houses all over the world. Heaven forbid you have to run and hide, you can turn to another Jew — even one…
-
Opinion A Note to Parents Worried Their Child Will Be Next
Here’s a little exercise I’d like to suggest for all the parents now traumatized by the brutal murder of Leiby Kletzky and wondering when — if ever — they will let their children walk outside, given the “crazy world we live in” and the notion that “times have changed,” and the belief that “you never…
-
Opinion Is Murdoch’s Mess Bad for the Jews?
It was only a matter of time before someone would ask whether the international scandal engulfing Rupert Murdoch’s empire was good for the Jews. And if you feel compelled to ask, the answer is almost always “no.” JTA’s Ron Kampeas essentially posed the question in a story contending that some supporters of Israel are worried…
-
Opinion Why Is Israel’s Boycott Law Different From America’s?
Given the widespread protests over Israel’s newly enacted anti-boycott laws, a great many friends of Israel are wondering aloud why the fuss — specifically, why is this law treyf while the anti-boycott measures passed by the United States Congress and signed into law by President Jimmy Carter in 1977 have not aroused all these protests?…
-
Opinion Noam Sheizaf: Worrying About Israeli Democracy
A few minutes after midnight on July 11, the night the Knesset passed its anti-boycott law, a hundred or so young Israelis gathered at Rabin Square in Tel Aviv. Since the square is being renovated, they clustered along one of its edges. Some of them improvised protest signs, facing them towards busy Ibn Gvirol Avenue….
-
Opinion Will Jews Defect to the GOP? This Clear Voice Says: No Way
Here’s a question that will surely be asked incessantly until the next presidential election: Will American Jews desert the Democratic Party and throw some of their electoral weight and considerable financial clout to Republicans in 2012? Already, there have been claims and counter-claims, polls that seem to be no more than political advertisements and occasional…
-
Opinion The Real Peoplehood Problem
In a July 15 Forward op-ed, the Jewish Agency’s Misha Galperin sounded an urgent call for funding what he calls “the peoplehood agenda.” This agenda is meant to counter a perceived problem with the younger generation of American Jews. “Having been raised in a world of pluralism and tolerance,” Galperin wrote, “Jews younger than 45…
-
Opinion What We Talk About When We Talk About Peoplehood
I’ve received some interesting responses to an op-ed we ran recently in the paper. The piece was written by Misha Galperin, a top official at the Jewish Agency, who has overseen that quasi-governmental body’s shift from focusing on immigration to Israel, which was its mission for many decades, to something called “peoplehood” promotion. Galperin will…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
Culture ‘My mayor Muslim, my bagel Jewish’ — the Knicks chant capturing New York’s soul
- 2
Books In ‘Something We Said,’ Richard Pryor’s daughter finds words to discuss the unspeakable
- 3
Opinion It’s time for Jews who love Israel to give up on Zionism
- 4
News How Iran is outsourcing terror plots against Jews
In Case You Missed It
-
Culture The Jewish friendship that let David Hockney experience ‘dangerous perfection’
-
Opinion Aristotle, Jewish ethics and the vexing case of Graham Platner
-
Culture What does it say that Gwyneth Paltrow is advertising luxury Israeli real estate?
-
News Abdul El-Sayed is courting Jewish voters — without moderating his views on Israel