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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Opinion
On Tony Judt: Our Readers Erupt — Er, React
My last two “Good Fences” columns on Oliver Stone and Tony Judt kicked up an unusual volume of reader feedback, most of it hostile, much of it downright vitriolic and occasionally incoherent. And some of it was instructive and chastening. I usually prefer to keep my peace and let the dialogue play itself out, but…
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Opinion Will Israel Attack Iran? Should It? Does Goldberg (the Other One) Give Both Sides Their Due?
The Atlantic has posted a compelling article by Jeffrey Goldberg, who for the record is not me, on the prospects of an Israeli military strike against Iran. It’s based on extensive on- and off-the-record interviews with Israeli political and military leaders, Obama administration officials and Arab diplomats. He puts the likelihood of an Israeli strike…
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Opinion The Missing ‘Mazel Tov’
The future of liberal Judaism depends on engaging interfaith families in Jewish life. Because we live in a celebrity-driven culture, the wedding of Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky offers a rare opportunity to influence more interfaith couples to make Jewish choices. Yet instead our Jewish leaders’ responses seem almost calculated to push those couples away….
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Opinion When Shuls Were Banned in America
When New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg stood on Governors Island, in sight of the Statue of Liberty, and forcefully defended the right of Muslims to build a community center and mosque two blocks from Ground Zero, he expressly made a point of distancing himself from an earlier leader of the city: Peter Stuyvesant, who understood…
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Opinion For Israel, There’s Only One End Game
The “two state solution” to the Israel/Palestine conflict has become the glamourless default position of most of those who think about the conflict. It has achieved that lumpy status despite the flaws in its logic, the problematics of its implementation, the dangers that inhere in it and the determined hostility to it from some on…
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Letters August 20, 2010
The American Jewish Congress and Us As a former executive director of the American Jewish Congress (1971-1978), I was saddened by the news that it has suspended its operations. Jerome Chanes’s July 23 essay on the unique contributions of the AJCongress was a moving tribute to the many innovative actions that are part of the…
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Opinion Facing Alzheimer’s
Have you confronted Alzheimer’s disease in person? Then you know it’s not simply about someone who misplaces the car keys or cannot remember the name of the movie seen last week. The loss of short-term memory is frustrating, and sometimes frightening, but Alzheimer’s is so much more. It’s the man who wanders away from home,…
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Opinion Citizens at Birth
In the United States, the debate is over the 14th Amendment. In Israel, it’s centered on a government decision to deport the children of migrant workers. The core issue is the same: Should birth confer citizenship? And who gets to decide? The first question ought not to be difficult to answer, for the right to…
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Opinion Remembering Tony Judt, Heartsick Lover of Zion
If you’ve been following the news lately, you’re probably aware of the death August 6 of Tony Judt, the British-born historian of modern Europe. You’ll surely have noticed the cascades of tribute to “one of the world’s most prominent public intellectuals” (Toronto Globe and Mail), “a historian of the first order” (Time magazine), “widely regarded…
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Opinion Why Social Security Isn’t Broke, Why We Think It Is and Where the Money Went
Los Angeles Times business columnist Michael Hiltzik has an essential piece today debunking what he calls “The Myth of the Social Security system’s financial shortfall.” It’s based on the newly-released 2010 report of the Social Security Trustees. In fact, he argues, Social Security is doing fine, sort of. If there’s a problem, it’s the fact…
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Opinion Why the Lebanese Border Is Heating Up. Hint: It’s Not About Israel
Progressive Zionists rightly insist on the right to declare one’s love for Israel and still point out when Israel is in the wrong and the other side has a legitimate case. The trouble is that one neglects to take note from time to time (to time to time to time, actually) when Israel is in…
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