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
Barak Attacks Bibi: Time To Offer Genuine Negotiations Before ‘Diplomatic Tsunami’ Hits
Ehud Barak, Israel’s defense minister, warned this week that the government he helps to lead is leading the country to disaster. Speaking to the Institute for National Security Studies Tel Aviv on Sunday March 13, he said that the country faces a “diplomatic tsunami that the majority of the country is unaware of.” He sounds…
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Opinion Reckoning Wrongly in a Massacre’s Wake
“A proper revenge for the blood of a little child/Satan has not yet devised.” So wrote the revered Hebrew poet Chaim Nachman Bialik in his searing poem “On the Slaughter” in April 1903, a few days after the bloody Kishinev pogrom. The two-day rampage by townspeople in the czarist regional capital had left the Jewish…
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Opinion The Fogel Photographs
Two images of the Fogel family are circulating after five of them were brutally murdered March 11 while sleeping in their home in the Israeli settlement of Itamar. The first is a montage of warm, sweet faces: Udi and Ruth, the parents, he with a full, neatly trimmed beard, she with a scarf covering her…
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Opinion The Triangle Legacy
A century later, why does a fire in a garment factory resonate so deeply? The deadly inferno at the Triangle Waist Company on March 25, 1911, is being commemorated in hundreds of different events, coast to coast, in word, song, poetry and deed, because it represents many of the touchstones of the American experience. It…
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Opinion Awards and Accolades
It’s awards season in the journalism world, and I’m pleased to report that the Forward has already brought home a few. At its annual dinner March 10, the Community Media Alliance in New York gave two of its Ippies Awards to Josh Nathan-Kazis for writing about labor and education, and one to Nadja Spiegelman for…
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Letters Stand With Workers
I am a Jewish Wisconsinite, a member of the Community Relations Committee of the Jewish Federation of Madison, a public employee and a union member. I have been deeply disappointed that Wisconsin’s Jewish federations are not standing with me as I struggle to preserve (and now restore) my rights (“In Madison, Only Some Jewish Voices…
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Letters Political Correctness Shouldn’t Stop Inquiry
Few clichés are more mischievous or responsible for more deaths than the one that is the unfortunate set-up for your editorial: One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter (“A Question of Loyalty,” March 18). Repudiating that cliché has been a centerpiece of Jewish communal activism for more than 40 years. As the United States…
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Letters Grasping Benedict
The essay on Pope Benedict XVI’s second volume of “Jesus of Nazareth” by Rabbi Eugene Korn evinces a mature understanding of the pope’s philosophy and theology (“Benedict’s ‘Jesus’ and the Jews,” March 18). Sadly, this is something often missed by Catholics, so it is especially gratifying that Rabbi Korn nicely captured the essence of the…
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Opinion In Praise of Reform Theology
Last month, I published an opinion article in these pages arguing that Reform Judaism’s theology contributes to the sociological factors that are weakening the Reform movement in our open, pluralistic society. In my February 25 article, “The Theological Roots of Reform Judaism’s Woes,” I wrote that contemporary Reform Judaism’s pluralistic theologies and focus on individual…
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Opinion Reform Judaism Isn’t an Island
These days, everyone seems to have something to say about what they think is wrong with Reform Judaism. We have heard that the Reform movement is, at best, in stasis and, at worst, facing a significant decline in its membership rolls. Some argue that Reform institutions are insufficiently nimble and overly bureaucratic. Others point to…
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Opinion The Knesset’s Feminist Awakening
Something has changed in Israeli politics. Yulia Shamalov-Berkovich found that out the hard way. Last month, Shamalov-Berkovich, a Kadima Knesset member, made some outrageous remarks about single mothers, feminists and victims of sexual harassment. Ignorance and callousness regarding mistreatment of women is nothing new — even for elected officials. What made this incident unusual was…
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