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 Agency’s New Agenda
The Jewish Agency for Israel is embarking on a bold and necessary attempt to create a new mission for itself, downplaying its historic role in promoting immigration to Israel and emphasizing instead an intriguing but still amorphous notion of Jewish “peoplehood.” Applause is warranted anytime a sprawling, calcified bureaucracy seeks new direction and energy, and…
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Opinion Welcoming the ‘Rabba’
Was it the name? When Rabbi Avi Weiss ordained a woman last year and gave her the made-up honorific of “Maharat,” the mainstream Orthodox world wasn’t pleased, but neither was it furious. Just as much criticism came from those who thought the compromise title was disingenuous, even demeaning. If Sara Hurwitz was to act as…
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Opinion They Won’t Leave Lonesome Joe Alone
The stormy relationship between Joe Lieberman and the Democrats is proving to be a bottomless source of inspiration for political reporters and philosophers of our time. Occasionally somebody writes something that can make you smarter. But not always. In the smart category is this piece in Time magazine by Massimo Calabrese, titled “The Loneliest Senator:…
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Opinion New Studies Show: Layoffs Kill. What Are We Doing About It? Nothing
There was a whopper of a scandal on the front page of the New York Times last Wednesday (February 26). It was the sort of story that makes everybody sit up, that changes the national discourse. Think of the Pentagon Papers or Bill Clinton’s Oval Office indiscretions. When misbehavior on a grand scale is brought…
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Opinion Rockin’ Hit From an Israeli Pop Legend: ‘Almighty God, Forgive Your People’
This song has been around for two or three years, but I just came across it on the Ynet.co.il Web site and was blown away. The lyric is El Nora Alila, a liturgical piyyut poem written in the early 12th century by the immortal Spanish-Jewish poet and philosopher Moses Ibn Ezra. The singer is Meir…
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Letters March 5, 2010
For the Health of Zion For 70 years, American Friends of Magen David Adom and its many thousands of donors have stood in solidarity with the people of Israel and with Magen David Adom (“Magen David Adom and Its U.S. Arm Feud Over Their Future,” February 26). MDA, through its thousands of professional and volunteer…
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Opinion The Conservative Moment
Is this the Conservative movement’s moment? Arnold Eisen, chancellor of the flagship Jewish Theological Seminary, certainly thinks so, and his optimistic evaluation takes full account of the challenges facing what was once America’s largest Jewish religious denomination as it now struggles to define itself. His analysis echoes, though with far more detail and prescription, the…
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Opinion Series in Search of a Solution
“For decades, there has been a stalemate: two peoples with legitimate aspirations, each with a painful history that makes compromise elusive. It is easy to point fingers — for Palestinians to point to the displacement brought by Israel’s founding, and for Israelis to point to the constant hostility and attacks throughout its history from within…
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Opinion Playing With Matches in Hebron
There are two ways to explain Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s announcement of plans to renovate two sacred shrines in the West Bank and add them to his new heritage trail of Israeli historical sites. One explanation is that he wants to buy some credit with settlers and the religious right in order to shore up…
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Opinion The New Israel Fund Needs To Set Red Lines
The tenor of the recent debate over the New Israel Fund should concern anyone who cares about Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state. In responding to campus group Im Tirtzu’s claims that NIF funds most of the Israeli NGOs that were used as sources for the Goldstone Report, NIF and its supporters have…
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Opinion The Bright Side of Israel’s Dark Oscar Nominees
When I was an adolescent growing up in America in the early 1970s, I knew of only two Israeli films. There was the soldier movie — that was Yosef Milo’s “He Walked Through the Fields.” And there was the one about Jaffa’s underclass — that was Menachem Golan’s “Kazablan.” Four decades later, for three years…
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