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
A Moderate Found Lacking
The heated debate over the proposed $100 million Islamic cultural center and mosque only two blocks from Ground Zero has thus far focused mostly on the appropriateness of building a mosque at that particular location. Although grappling with the philosophical and political dimensions of the location’s suitability is important, an even more critical question is…
-
Opinion Statement of Muslim American Imams and Community Leaders on Holocaust Denial
Last week, the Forward reported on a recent trip by eight prominent American Muslim religious and community leaders to Nazi concentration camps in Germany and Poland (“At the Death Camps, Muslim Leaders Grapple With Jews’ Pain,” August 20). The trip was led by Rabbi Jack Bemporad of the Center for Interreligious Understanding and Marshall Breger…
-
Opinion The Struggle Over Israel’s Military Strategy
It’s probably the most riveting front-page drama in Israel today. Its outcome will decisively affect regional developments, including the Iranian nuclear crisis, for years. And you probably haven’t heard a word about it, alert reader though you are. The world press has barely mentioned it. I refer to the race to succeed Israel’s military chief…
Columnists View All
The Latest
-
Opinion A Threat From Within
Part one of a series on poverty in Israel; to read part two, click here. In May, when Israel was invited to join the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a 31-nation club of the world’s most elite, developed economies, Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz called it “a badge of honor.” Indeed, it is. Acceptance means…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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….
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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,…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
Sports First Puka Nacua, now Mookie Betts: Why do sports stars keep getting antisemitic around a Jewish streamer?
- 2
Fast Forward After MIT professor’s killing, Jewish influencers spread unverified antisemitism claim
- 3
News Christians are displaying menorahs in their windows post-Bondi Beach attack. Why some Jews object
- 4
Politics This politician refused to say ‘Happy Hanukkah,’ then blamed ‘political correctness’ for the backlash
In Case You Missed It
-
News Warsaw Jewish cemetery director fired amid clash over who controls the preservation of Poland’s Jewish past
-
Yiddish ליאַ קעניג באַמאָלט איר לעבן ווי אַן אַקטריסע, פֿון בוקאַרעשט ביז תּל־אָבֿיבֿLia Koenig describes her life as an actress, from Bucharest to Tel Aviv
כאָטש זי האָט מער ווי 50 יאָר געשפּילט אויף דער העברעיִשער בינע זאָגט זי, אַז שלום־עליכם קען זי נאָר שפּילן אויף ייִדיש.
-
Fast Forward Bondi gunmen condemned ‘Zionist’ actions prior to attack and threw bombs that failed to detonate, police say
-
Fast Forward Toronto men, including 1 linked to ISIS, charged with targeting Jewish women for assault
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
