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
Who Said Jews Are Leaving Obama?
A new Gallup Poll out today confirms that President Obama’s strong Jewish support has not evaporated following his May 19 speech on the Middle East. In fact, it hasn’t moved a bit. Sixty percent of Jews approved of Obama’s job in June, while 32 percent disapproved. In a poll of the general public, Obama gets…
-
Opinion Will the One-State Solution Become the Only Solution?
Tony Judt’s deliberately provocative 2003 New York Review of Books essay, “Israel: the Alternative,” is a lesson in the limits of American Jewry’s allowable discourse when it comes to Israel. Writing explicitly in the tradition of thought experiment, rather than policy proposal, about what he called an “alternative future,” Judt suggests that Jews and Arabs…
-
Opinion The Sniper Who Killed Me: Syrian Photog Films Own Murder
A Syrian civilian in the city of Homs ran onto his roof with a video camera to film the shooting outside his house. Eventually he focuses on a uniformed gunman in a nearby building who takes aim at him and shoots. A few moments of silence, and then voices of grief approaching. Haaretz has the…
Columnists View All
The Latest
-
Opinion ‘Zombie Liberalism’: Standing Up for Minorities, Losing Sight of the Majority?
The Washington Post has a useful news analysis that looks at the New York State gay marriage decision and what it says about the state of liberalism. The headline says it all: “The rise of zombie liberalism: Half-dead, half-alive. “ The basic premise isn’t terribly new, but it’s too often forgotten: the liberalism of “Expanding…
-
Opinion A Country In Need of Social Justice
Why does it matter that the Jewish people persists, beyond the sometime comforts of ethnic identity? What grand purpose is served by the continuing existence of the Jews? Obviously, there are a variety of plausible responses to those questions. Having a compelling way to fill in the blank in the sentence that begins, “It is…
-
Opinion Dinner With Livni
The Tzipi Livni who spoke before a small, private dinner on Wednesday evening in New York seemed more excitable, passionate and downright worried than she has been in these sort of settings. Barely had the guests invited by the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace taken their seats when the leader of Israel’s…
-
Opinion WJC’s Leader Veers to the Right and Beyond
Consider this thought. It just might represent your future: “In political warfare, words are lethal weapons.” So lethal, in fact, that when you look at today’s dangers, “It would behoove Israeli and Jewish leaders to avoid being the inadvertent ‘weapons suppliers’ of the country’s adversaries.” Translation: Watch what you say. You might be aiding the…
-
Opinion Independence Day for an American Rabbi
In 1914, Mary Antin, an American Jewish writer and immigration activist, described the founding of the United States in biblical terms: I have chosen to read the story of ’76 as a chapter in sacred history…. Once the thunders of God were heard on Mount Sinai, and a certain people heard, and the blackness of…
-
Letters Caring About Jewish Education
The Forward’s June 14 opinion piece “Hebrew Language Charter Schools Are a Bad Bargain” fails to mention that Jewish federations maintain an unwavering commitment to hundreds of educational programs across North America, dedicating millions of dollars toward the future of our children. In fact, despite continued economic challenges, many federations are expanding their support of…
-
Letters Bialystock, Through a Different Lens
I write to respond to Allan Nadler’s discussion of my recent book, “Jewish Bialystok and Its Diaspora.” In his May 20 review, “Cities of Jewish Success, Crushed,” Nadler appears to have fallen into a classic trap: He measures my book not against its own ambitions but against the book he wishes I had written. As…
-
Opinion Keeping It Kosher
Is a hotel no longer to be considered kosher because of the way it treats its housekeepers? Is a restaurant or a factory treyf because of how it treats its workers? Jews in America have long been concerned with the rights of workers and the conditions of employment, but those concerns have largely been framed…
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