Opinion articles that represent the views of the Forward’s editors.
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Opinion Taking Extreme Steps To Banish Hametz Misses Point of Pesach
Our definition of hametz is expanding. The pun is intentional. But here’s my point: Many Jews go to ridiculous extremes to redefine and root out hametz for Passover, losing sight of the simplicity and subtlety of this extraordinary holiday. Hametz is narrowly defined as leavened bread, and Jews are not supposed to own, eat or…
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Opinion Don’t Pardon Jonathan Pollard
It’s not clear whether the idea was leaked by the Obama administration or advanced by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But the very suggestion that convicted spy Jonathan J. Pollard may be released from his North Carolina prison as part of an effort to resuscitate the flailing Israeli-Palestinian negotiations has accomplished something rare in Middle…
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Opinion The Right Plan To Save Jews?
Americans donate about $1.4 billion to Israel-related charities each year. Now the government of Israel is asking for more. And, at the same time, it wants to send some money our way. In the next few weeks, the Netanyahu government and the Jewish Agency for Israel are supposed to announce the framework for what’s being…
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Opinion A New Relationship Between Israel and the Diaspora
The relationship of the State of Israel with Diaspora Jewry is undergoing a historic shift that is at once inevitable and surprising, a healthy and welcome calibration but one fraught with worrying consequences. No longer is Israel the poor, scrappy cousin dependent on a financial lifeline from its wealthier relatives in exile — a lifeline…
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Opinion The ‘Draft Dodgers’ in Our Midst
When 50,000 ultra-Orthodox Jews flooded the streets of lower Manhattan this past Sunday, clogging the alleyways that curl through the Financial District with black hats and single-minded devotion, they did more than recite psalms in protest at what is now a new law in Israel. They introduced a new challenge to the Israel conversation at…
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Opinion Janet Heiser, Gone Far Too Soon
Every workplace, if it’s fortunate, has someone like Janet Heiser — someone who quietly and professionally solves problems, soothes hurt feelings, stands by her principles, and adds a sardonic splash of humor just when it’s needed. Our real Janet Heiser died on March 6 at 65, less than seven months after she was diagnosed with…
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Opinion Questions for the IRS
The Internal Revenue Service is an easy target for anger and disdain, especially now, as the deadline to file income taxes approaches and the IRS hasn’t quite recovered from the public battering it is receiving over questionable audits of politicized organizations. We don’t mean to pile on. But the startling story reported by our Nathan…
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Opinion Why We Use the ‘U-Word’ to Describe Very Observant Orthodox
The debate prompted by Rabbi Avi Shafran’s request published last week — “Don’t Call Us ‘Ultra-Orthodox,’” as its online headline read — is not a new one, but this will be the first time in more than five years as editor-in-chief that I publicly provide an answer and an explanation. The Forward will continue to…
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Fast Forward University leaders among 100+ signatories to Jewish letter decrying Trump’s campus antisemitism wars
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