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
Tunes for Atonement I: Kol Nidre and Father of Night
We’re back for Week 2 of our High Holy Day songfest as promised, this time in two parts. Part One includes Bob Dylan, Cantor Yossele Rosenblatt and Joe Cocker, plus the legendary Cantor Moishe Oysher, Jerry Lewis (in a serious moment, sort of), Larry David and the Red Army Chorus performing with the Leningrad Cowboys….
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Opinion Shades of Algeria on the West Bank
A right-wing government that settlers believed would look after their interests instead enters into negotiations with an organization that established its position through terrorism. Outraged by the prospect of concessions, the angry settlers openly defy their government’s authority. Despite the onset of peace talks, bloodshed continues — and it is unclear how an agreement can…
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Opinion How History Will Judge Boycotters of the Theater in Ariel
What shall we make of the recent refusal by dozens of Israeli actors and artists to perform in the newly built cultural center in Ariel, a city of 17,000 deep in the West Bank? By now, their voices have been augmented by those of some 150 American peers, including Broadway producer Harold Prince, performers Eve…
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Opinion A Case For Shaping Civil Society With Jewish Law
The poster took my breath away: “The divine throne will not be complete until the idolatry of Zionism is uprooted. May it be Your will that we will soon be able to say, ‘Blessed is the One who has uprooted idolatry.’” I was not in Ramallah, but in Mea Shearim, the ultra-Orthodox enclave of West…
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Opinion For Open Minds, Allies Are Everywhere
Edible fowl everywhere were breathing easier this Yom Kippur, after a leading Israeli rabbi called on sinners to atone this year by donating to the poor rather than twirling a chicken over their heads and then slaughtering it. Ritual chicken-twirling, known as kapparot or kappores, is merely a tradition or minhag, said the rabbi, Shlomo…
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Letters September 24, 2010
Conversion Before Sanctification As a Reform rabbi, I am proud to be part of a movement that wholeheartedly welcomes converts into our midst. Celebrating converts has a long and revered tradition in Judaism going back to the Book of Ruth, which makes the loyal daughter-in-law of Naomi a direct ancestor of King David. But lacking…
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Opinion Lessons from Haiti
Lubert Jean-Pierre is a 48-year-old Haitian father of six who used to sell charcoal in a makeshift roadside stand before the earthquake. At about 4:30 in the afternoon on January 12, he had gone to a small prayer meeting at a church in his neighborhood in Port-au-Prince. At 4:53, the building began to shake, the…
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Opinion Scary Sunday: Gingrich Says Obama’s Actions Are Shaped by a ‘Kenyan’ Mindset
It doesn’t get much slimier than this: Former House speaker Newt Gingrich, the GOP’s resident senior statesman, told the National Review Online late Saturday that President Obama’s actions might be “beyond our comprehension” — unless “you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior.” To be fair, Gingrich phrased it as a hypothetical — “what if” Obama is incomprehensible…
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Opinion Mosque Madness: ADL Strikes Back, AJC Catches Up
In a nod, intentional or not, to the holiday spirit of atonement, the Anti-Defamation League announced just before Rosh Hashana that it has formed a task force, together with Christian and Muslim groups, to support Muslim congregations facing hostility around the country, particularly in connection with building mosques. The September 7 announcement came five weeks…
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Opinion Dismissing the New Paradigm Imperils Israel
After the Israeli raid on the Turkish blockade breakers’ boat off Gaza this summer, I kept running into the same question: Why does international condemnation of Israel continue to grow ever more virulent? Shouldn’t Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, and the withdrawal from the Security Zone in Lebanon in 2000, have led to a…
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Opinion The Cost of Belonging
American Jews love to complain about how expensive it is to be Jewish, as if there were no choice in the matter, as if there were only costs associated with Jewish life and nothing on the benefits side of the equation. As if we were the only ones carrying such a burden. We look in…
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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
In Case You Missed It
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Opinion The Iran war ended terribly for the US, and even worse for Israel
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Film & TV Would Judaism have an issue with ‘Disclosure Day?’
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Fast Forward 14 arrested during rival protests outside Israeli real estate event held at London synagogue
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Fast Forward The Knicks won on 6/13. Jewish fans think that’s more than a coincidence.