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
‘We Don’t Hunt’
Here is a story I used to tell frequently, but haven’t for many years now. It is a true story I made up in 1980 or so. (A true story I made up? Yes. The compelling reason we love stories is that they do not have to have happened in order to be true.) It…
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Opinion Two Revolutions and the Crises They Created
If it feels as though we’re living through strange, frightening times, that’s because we are. The planet is experiencing a wrenching atmospheric change, what with biblical-scale storms and droughts, disappearing polar ice caps, rising oceans and endangered crop cycles. The nations, particularly in the 1.5 billion-strong Muslim world, are undergoing a collective nervous breakdown that…
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Letters Bialystok Redux
In her letter responding to my June 3 critical review of her book, “Jewish Bialystok and its Diaspora,” Rebecca Kobrin argues that I have “fallen into a classical trap” of assessing her book not on its own merits, but on those of the book I wish she had written, which she argues would have been…
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Letters Debating Peoplehood
In his July 5 op-ed, “Funding Peoplehood,” Misha Galperin stresses the need to invest in projects that strengthen Jewish identity. He also underscores how Jewish organizations must agree upon a clear, collective goal for advancing “the peoplehood agenda.” But what’s missing from this piece is a more expansive, values-based understanding of how Jewish peoplehood is…
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Opinion We Can’t Say This
We could get in trouble for this. Not in New York City, where this editorial is being written, because legitimate comment is protected under the First Amendment. But our editorials, along with many other stories and columns in the Forward, also appear every Sunday in the English edition of the Haaretz newspaper in Israel. And…
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Opinion A Terrible Pledge
Will abortion affect voters’ decisions in 2012? Probably not. As The New York Times reports, less than 1 percent told its nationwide poll this year and last that abortion was the top problem facing the country. But that hasn’t stopped the Susan B. Anthony List from demanding fealty to their extreme anti-abortion views from all…
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Opinion Read it Here!
Alert readers of this edition of the Forward may have noticed something new. A slightly different size to the page. Crisper printing. More use of color. That’s because, with this edition, the Forward is producing its entire national press run of both the English and Yiddish papers on presses owned by the New York Daily…
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Opinion In Sudan, Say ‘Never Again,’ And Mean It
The special obligation of Jews to combat genocide and eliminationist politics, even injustice more generally — by now almost a cliché — is linked to Jews having been the victims of the Holocaust and of a long and bitter history of persecution. This call on Jews to urge the defense of the defenseless is pertinent…
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Opinion Next for Knesset: Bill To Probe ‘Leftist’ NGOs
Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu party, flush from its victory in the boycott law debate, plans to bring another gag-rule bill to the Knesset floor for final vote next week, Ynet reports. The bill would create a Knesset investigative committee to examine the funding of “leftist” NGOs that “delegitimize” the Israeli army. Members of the Likud…
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Opinion A Levelheaded Israeli Calls Anti-Boycott Law ‘Fascism’
I’m still reeling from the news yesterday that the Knesset passed the anti-boycott law. It’s reassuring to know that it’s not just Israelis on the left that are outraged by this. In this morning’s Maariv, Ben Caspit, one of Israel’s most prominent and influential columnists, tears into the new law, expressing much anguish — you…
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Opinion Can One Be an American Zionist Rabbi?
The Jewish press has been abuzz in recent months with debate about the extent to which liberal-minded American Jews and, more specifically, their rabbis, are distancing themselves from Israel politically, morally or even religiously. In light of this situation, there is a growing concern among contemporary Zionists that liberal-minded Jews will soon find themselves with…
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