Opinion articles that represent the views of the Forward’s editors.
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Opinion Real Family Values
It is not yet the law of the land, but legislation to extend Israel’s national maternity-leave policy is well on its way to approval. Earlier this month, the Knesset voted overwhelmingly to grant new mothers six months unpaid leave — the first 14 weeks of which are paid. Even supporters of this legislation concede that…
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Opinion Charitable Lessons
The story in this week’s Forward about the $12.25 million gift from a group of donors to a Jewish day school near Boston arrives at the end of this trying, tumultuous year with several important messages. The first is that high-quality, pluralistic day school education is worth supporting. As Rabbi Irving Greenberg wrote on these…
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Opinion The Public Obligation
As of this writing, it seems as if the “public option” in health care reform may go the way of other well-intentioned but ultimately futile attempts to persuade America to live up to its promise. In other words, nowhere. As of this writing, the Senate appears to have pushed aside the idea of a government-run…
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Opinion The Minister of Halacha?
The initial statement was troubling. The subsequent clarification didn’t help. Israel’s justice minister, Yaakov Ne’eman, may not be hastening the “Talibanization” of his country, as some allege, but his assertion that Jewish law should be privileged and restored to its “former glory” bespeaks an attitude that can have no place in the governance of a…
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Opinion The Madoff Accounting
A year ago, Bernard Madoff’s name was known mainly on Wall Street, in the toniest neighborhoods of Manhattan and Palm Beach, and by the few ordinary folks who thought they were unusually lucky to have tapped into his investment genius. Now, they know better. Everyone knows better. Now, his cocky visage made for Halloween masks…
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Opinion A Light in the Dark
Hanukkah is a topsy-turvy holiday that often seems more commercial than spiritual, more exciting to children than adults, growing in importance the closer it is to Christmas. Its central beauty often gets lost in December’s excesses, its message of fierce self-determination at odds with the benign fuzziness of Yuletide wishes. But during this dark time…
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Opinion Not Only for Ourselves
The story was heart-warming, but instructive in an unexpected way. Jewish families gathered on a Sunday in a warehouse to pack boxes of pasta, canned vegetables and other food supplies and deliver them to needy residents in their region. Parents brought their children to reinforce the message of helping others. A brief dvar Torah was…
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Opinion Palin’s Unsettling Views
What passes for punditry these days says that Sarah Palin must be taken seriously, not just as a potential talk-show host but a potential presidential candidate. We’re trying. So rather than dismiss her mystifying views on the expansion of Jewish settlements, we sought to understand them. “I disagree with the Obama administration on that,” she…
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News Who was Horst Wessel, and why are people comparing Charlie Kirk to him?
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Culture Charlie Kirk kept a ‘Jewish Sabbath.’ What did he mean by that?
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Film & TV Robert Redford’s legacy is surprisingly Jewish
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Opinion The terrifying Nazi precedent for Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension — and the reasons to stay hopeful
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Fast Forward Freed hostage Edan Alexander says he’s returning to the IDF next month
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Yiddish World How a Yiddish acting troupe fooled the Tsarist government
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Fast Forward After years of war, world’s oldest synagogue paintings are revealed as intact in Damascus
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