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
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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Opinion Remembering Yelena Bonner
When I asked Natan Sharansky to explain how Yelena Bonner complemented the work of her husband, Nobel Prize-winning Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov, Sharansky said he could do so quite simply. “Let’s take the example of the Carter letter,” he told me. In the first days of 1977, an American visitor to Moscow arrived at Sakharov’s…
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Opinion With YIISA’s Demise, a Lingering Question: Can Academia Ever Ignore Politics?
Can a clear line be drawn between academic scholarship and political imperatives? Of all the questions raised by Yale University’s recent closure of the Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism (YIISA), this one is the most acute. Even with the news that Yale is going to replace YIISA with a new program for…
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Opinion Reading Talmud With One Eye on Stalin and the Other on Yogi
My jet lag seems to be getting worse with age. I got into Israel on Friday afternoon in a daze, just made it to my friends’ house in Jerusalem before Shabbat and have been more or less in the same daze until now, Monday. So I just logged onto our new Forward Thinking blog and…
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Opinion If You See Something…
“Did you see that bag on the ground?” my wife asked. “Don’t worry about it,” I snapped, snatching a quick glance behind me at the blue duffle bag resting on the floor. I had no time to waste on luggage. Body tensed, every sense and sinew poised, I prepared for the physical combat about to…
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Books In ‘Something We Said,’ Richard Pryor’s daughter finds words to discuss the unspeakable
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Opinion It’s time for Jews who love Israel to give up on Zionism
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Opinion Progressive Jews are trying out post-Zionism. There’s one big flaw in their approach
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Culture The Jewish friendship that let David Hockney experience ‘dangerous perfection’
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Opinion Aristotle, Jewish ethics and the vexing case of Graham Platner
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Culture What does it say that Gwyneth Paltrow is advertising luxury Israeli real estate?
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News Abdul El-Sayed is courting Jewish voters — without moderating his views on Israel