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
The Blessing of Making Aliyah at 79
Two years ago, at age 79, my mother became an olah hadashah, a new immigrant to Israel. We moved her to live in the small apartment above my sister Ruth’s home within the Old City in Jerusalem. In the years preceding her move to Israel she had descended into the fog of Alzheimer’s disease. Her…
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Opinion Guest Editor: Michael Berenbaum
This fall, eight guest editors are helping to shape the Forward Forum by commissioning opinion pieces. This week, it’s Michael Berenbaum, a professor of Jewish Studies at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles and director of the Sigi Ziering Institute there, which studies the ethical and religious implications of the Holocaust. He was project…
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Opinion Being Jewish Is Falling Out of Fashion
Now that former Virginia Senator George Allen is planning his comeback, it’s time to take a long look at the meaning of Jewish identity in the 21st century. You remember Allen. He was the shoo-in Republican incumbent whose 2006 Senate re-election campaign collapsed in midsummer after he was filmed using what sounded like an obscure…
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Opinion An Unworthy Oath
The Declaration of Independence approved on May 14, 1948, heralds the new nation of Israel as a “Jewish state” but never defines what that actually means. There’s no mention of religion, indeed no mention of God. (“Rock of Israel” is the compromise phrase.) But there is an explicit description of the new state’s civic values:…
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Opinion A Damaging ‘Cure’
The recent spasm of violence and inflammatory rhetoric against gays and lesbians should concern all Americans. From the suicide of a hounded Rutgers University student, to the unforgivably brutal attacks on gay men in the Bronx, the headlines have been chilling. When a major party candidate for governor of the nation’s third-largest state can say…
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Opinion Jew vs. Hidden Jew: Macaca-man George Allen Eyes Va. Run. Plus: 15 Jewish Dems in Senate?!
The Wonkette blog reported Thursday that former Virginia Republican senator George Allen is gearing up for a rematch against Democrat Jim Webb to get his old seat back. Webb took away the seat in 2006 when Allen ran into a barrage of heat over his calling an Indian-American Democratic campaign worker “macaca.” According to Wonkette’s…
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Opinion Slate Columnist Targets a ‘Ground Zero Synagogue,’ and Readers Reply
William Saletan, a columnist at Slate.com, wrote a piece September 29 titled “The Ground Zero Synagogue: Should Jews build a synagogue near a site of Jewish terrorism?” He compares the debate over the proposed Islamic center near Ground Zero in New York to the building of a new synagogue in Kiryat Arba, just outside Hebron,…
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Opinion The Guatemala Revelations Are Not An Aberration
Now and then, I write here about matters that have no obvious connection to the world of the Jews. And now and then, such columns provoke responses from readers who question why a newspaper devoted to matters Jewish would publish such writing. So this time I am going to try to make the connection explicit….
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Opinion Partying or Peacemaking?
The tenth anniversary just passed of the start of the Second, or Al-Aqsa, Intifada, which began not long after a breakdown in negotiations between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. It was the week of Ariel Sharon’s provocative visit to the Temple Mount, the week Palestinians renewed their rioting against Israeli…
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Opinion From Generation to Generation
Last week, my father was looking for help. He’d recently teamed up with an Israeli nonprofit serving the mentally disabled, and wanted to recruit younger Jews to head up outreach in Canada. So naturally, he came to his 31-year-old son to help him bring young Jews aboard. I called the first friend I could think…
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Opinion A More Hospitable Sukkah City
My almost-four-year-old daughter, Bess, knows New York’s Union Square primarily as the home of an awesome new playground. She also knows that every fall, we build a sukkah on her grandparents’ deck, invite friends over, and hang out in it whenever we can. So she can perhaps be forgiven for having assumed that the spectacular…
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Culture ‘My mayor Muslim, my bagel Jewish’ — the Knicks chant capturing New York’s soul
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Opinion Cultural boycotts of Israel just reached peak absurdity
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Sports Memes, mashiach and ‘Torah-cyclopedias’ put a Jewish twist on the Knicks’ title chase
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Opinion It’s time for Jews who love Israel to give up on Zionism
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