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
A Great Jewish Library’s Uncertain Future: What Will Happen to the Valmadonna?
All of a sudden, the future of one of the great contemporary treasures of Jewish culture is clouded with uncertainty. The treasure in question is the Valmadonna Trust Library, a collection of some 13,000 Hebrew books that had been systematically and assiduously assembled over the last 50 years by a relentless English businessman named Jack…
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Opinion Abe Foxman Takes on a New Threat: Jewish Paranoia
That’s right: Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, has written a forceful essay attacking what he sees as a tendency among Jews to see enemies everywhere and overlook signs of friendship, and thus to risk missing opportunities for peace. Foxman frames his thesis around the Carmel fire and the outside help that…
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Opinion Oh, Henry
Henry Kissinger, diplomat extraordinaire, is 87 years old and still commands attention. Just a few weeks ago, he joined other former Republican statesmen in penning an opinion piece for The Washington Post urging ratification of the nuclear arms treaty with Russia currently being held hostage by their GOP compatriots in Congress. He remains engaged in…
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Opinion Making Service Matter
Volunteerism comes in all shapes, sizes and outcomes. There are the one-day service projects that can galvanize those who participate, but may not always have the kind of oomph that leads to lasting change. There are long-term commitments like Teach for America and the Peace Corps that are out of reach for most workaday people….
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Letters Charity Shouldn’t Pay for Exorbitant Salaries
I read the Forward’s December 17 story “Women Continue To Lag Behind in Top Nonprofit Positions and Pay” with my mouth literally agape. While I always suspected Jewish communal leaders in top positions made a great deal of money, I was shocked to see those numbers put on paper — and frankly, I’m appalled. Of…
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Letters The Right Balance for Religious Freedom
Your December 10 editorial “Hiring Rights and Wrongs” notes several ways in which President Obama’s recent executive order “include[s] important safeguards” for constitutional principles, but you then criticize the president for refusing to deny faith-based organizations the right to hire their staff on the basis of religion. Moreover, you assert that it “was the law”…
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Opinion How Kissinger Saved the Jews
The year was 1973, and Henry Kissinger, a Jewish refugee from German Nazism and President Richard Nixon’s national security adviser, made a staggeringly distasteful comment about Soviet Jews: If the Soviets “put Jews into gas chambers,” Kissinger said, it’s “not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern.” Maybe. No one has ever gone broke overstating…
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Opinion Roger Cohen’s Recklessness
Roger Cohen, a New York Times Op-Ed columnist, is not obsessed with Israel; it only seems that way. During the last 10 weeks, only(!) five of his Times columns have dealt directly with Israel. I admit that I share the obsession, but not the places it takes him. In his column on December 10, for…
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Opinion Israel Doesn’t Need the West Bank To Be Secure
When everything is said and done, how important is the West Bank to Israel’s defense? To answer the question, our best starting point is the situation before the 1967 war. At that time, the Arab armed forces surrounding Israel outnumbered the Jewish state’s army by a ratio of 3-to-1. Not only was the high ground…
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Opinion Obstructing a Middle East Rescue Effort
Special Middle East envoy George Mitchell is back in the region conducting his shuttle diplomacy, settlement construction continues apace and the much-anticipated speech of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton managed to avoid hard choices. It’s business as usual, so presumably we can all relax — Israel has dodged another peace bullet. No so fast….
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Opinion Standing on Henrietta Szold’s Shoulders
One of Henrietta Szold’s earliest memories was being lifted on her father’s shoulders to glimpse the funeral cortege of Abraham Lincoln. Today we stand on her shoulders and admire the great American Jewish icon she became. Best known as the founder of Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization, Szold continues to inspire 150 years after her…
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Culture ‘My mayor Muslim, my bagel Jewish’ — the Knicks chant capturing New York’s soul
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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 Cultural boycotts of Israel just reached peak absurdity
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