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
Preserving Jewish Unity
In recent days an intense but familiar battle has challenged the Jewish community in Israel and the Diaspora. It’s not about the threat of a nuclear Iran, tensions in U.S.-Israel relations or the plight of Gilad Shalit. This time the conflict lies within — timely given the period of Tisha B’Av and our focus on…
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Opinion The Many Lives of David Twersky
When I was growing up, we used to spend the Fourth of July picnicking near a lake with another family, and after dark the fathers would put on a fireworks show. I remember it as a dizzying display of colors and patterns high above the lake — rockets, pinwheels and Roman candles soaring upwards, each…
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Letters July 30, 2010
How Big of a Tent? In his July 9 article “Peoplehood vs. Israel,” Jay Michaelson presents us with a stark choice. He states: “if we want a community that stands for something — for example, support for the existence of the State of Israel — then we are by definition excluding those who do not…
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Opinion Jewish Legitimacy
Given the hysteria and defiance that characterized much of the American Jewish response to the provocative “conversion bill” now stalled somewhere in the Knesset, what we’re about to say may sound counter-intuitive. But bear with us. For it is possible that the high-stakes drama caused by an Israeli lawmaker’s ham-handed attempt to liberalize the conversion…
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Opinion The ‘Stained Glass Ceiling’ and The Sisterhood 50
The “stained glass ceiling” is such a common condition that it has its own Wikipedia page. It refers to the barriers placed before women who strive to become leaders in their churches — barriers that are both overt (no Catholic women need apply) and more subtle. The metaphor doesn’t quite fit the Jewish world, but…
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Opinion Israel Beyond Emergencies
An ardently pro-Israel Catholic friend regularly takes out his frustration on me. He demands to know why American Jews aren’t outraged at President Obama for his chilliness to the Jewish state, why, when it comes to the existential dangers facing Israel, most Jews don’t seem to “get it.” A partial explanation may lie, surprisingly, in…
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Opinion Gaddafi Jr.: We Docked in Egypt After Israel OK’d Gaza Reconstruction Aid
Ynet, the Yediot website, reports that the Libyan blockade-buster ship headed for Gaza this week agreed to divert to El-Arish in Egypt following a secret Israeli-Libyan deal. Under the deal, mediated by Egypt, Israel agreed to let Libya send $50 million worth of construction material into Gaza, via the U.N., for post-Cast Lead rehabilitation. The…
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Opinion What the Congress Gave American Jews
When the American Jewish Congress closes its doors — an outcome that increasingly appears imminent — there won’t be many mourners saying Kaddish. Instead, the prevailing communal sentiment will probably be: “We have too many agencies; one less will not matter!” The serious financial problems that had plagued the AJCongress over recent decades became a…
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Opinion Rav Kook’s Love-Hate Relationship
Tisha B’Av comes early this year, which seems grimly appropriate given the deep sense of foreboding in Israel, and in Jerusalem, the hatreds from without and within pendant in the air. It is commonplace around Tisha B’Av to recall the famous talmudic dictum that the Temple was destroyed because of sinat chinam, baseless or freely…
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Opinion Hath Not a Jew Tensions?
And here, yet again, a new production of “The Merchant of Venice,” this time at the Delacorte Theater in New York’s Central Park. And, to decidedly mixed reviews, starring Al Pacino. (The Times loved him; The New Yorker not.) “The Merchant” is, of course, an exceedingly difficult play to pull off in our time. No…
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Opinion On Conversion, Alienating Israel’s Friends
Considering all the threats Israelis face right now — what with Hezbollah missiles to the north, Iran’s nuclear program to the east, war crimes lawsuits in Europe and Gaza blockade-busters on the high seas — you might think the last thing they’d be looking for would be a fight with their closest ally, the American…
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