Opinion articles that represent the views of the Forward’s editors.
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Opinion Sandy, a Year Later
It’s been a year since the ferocious winds and voluminous rain of Hurricane Sandy left parts of the East Coast crippled and gasping for breath. The dead have been buried, the flood waters have receeded, most public services have been restored and the nation’s attention has drifted away. But look closely: The signs of destruction…
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Opinion Where Is the Good News in Pew Survey on #JewishAmerica?
Reaction to the Pew Research Center’s survey on American Jews is following its own version of the cycles of grief: first horror, then denial, then a shrugging acceptance. After the gloomy news reports of this first-ever independent survey, a second wave of commentators have focused on what they call the “good news”: the population numbers…
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Opinion When Will Y.U. Learn?
When will Yeshiva University ever learn? When will modern American Orthodoxy’s flagship institution learn to own up to its mistakes, genuinely reform its procedures, live out its values and, above all, provide a safe and honest environment for its students? The latest revelation, that Y.U. hired a new faculty member who had been convicted of…
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Opinion After #JewishAmerica Survey, What Do We Do?
The U.S. Census Bureau asks many questions in its decennial survey of Americans, but never about their religion. The bureau considered doing it once, for the 1960 census, and actually put out a test question in March 1957. To the query “What is your religion?” 3.4% of Americans 14 years and older answered “Jewish.” After…
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Opinion Mental Distraction on Guns
After each mass shooting by an obviously disturbed American who indiscriminately mows down innocent civilians, the National Rifle Association’s Wayne LaPierre can always be counted on to put the problem in perspective. For LaPierre, the fact that Aaron Alexis shot and killed 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard on September 16 is yet another…
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Opinion Willie Rapfogel’s Fall From Grace
The sight of William E. Rapfogel being hustled into a car by two New York City law enforcement officers September 24 after he was arraigned on charges of stealing millions from the poverty charity he ran for more than two decades was embarrassing enough. The fact that Rapfogel was wearing a yarmulke made it only…
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Opinion A Place for Jewish Culture
Last year, Elise Bernhardt, president and CEO of the Foundation for Jewish Culture, gave a talk at the annual meeting of the Jewish Federations of North America about her favorite biblical character, Bezalel, “the original multi-media artist.” Without Bezalel, she argued, there would be no mishkan, no portable dwelling place for the divine. And without…
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Opinion Tale of Two Beauty Queens
Let’s begin by acknowledging that there is something profoundly anachronistic about beauty pageants in the 21st century. The idea that strutting around in swimsuits the size of postage stamps and answering inane questions in less time than it takes to apply lipstick are measures by which to judge the beauty and goodness of unmarried women…
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Fast Forward Arson at Jackson synagogue jolts Institute of Southern Jewish Life, but its mission persists
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Fast Forward Senate rejects effort to rein in Trump’s power to fight Iran alongside Israel
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