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.
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.
Israel has become a defining fact of Jewish life for Zionist and anti-Zionist Jews alike
A feeling of “this is not how it was supposed to be” permeates our sukkah this year. Sukkot is supposed to be a time of abundance, but this Sukkot seems to be, instead, a time of grave concern. Like rain penetrating the sukkah, the suffering around us makes us uncomfortable. When it rains we find…
Last year, I celebrated Rosh Hashanah services on Mount Lemmon, a small mountain that overlooks my home in Tucson, Ariz. We started doing this during the pandemic for safety reasons, but I hope we’ll continue to do it in years to come. On Mount Lemmon, I look out over the desert landscape. I listen to…
It’s traditional to reach out and apologize to those we have hurt before Yom Kippur to ask for forgiveness. Does that extend to your ex? Few relationships are as inherently intimate or emotional or painful as our romantic ones. While friendships run deep — and I think we would all be better off if we…
One Friday last winter when my boys were at their father’s house, I worked late at home, still in my pajamas. On the nights I don’t have my kids, I tend to heat up soup or pour myself a bowl of cereal for supper. (Less depressing than it sounds, I swear.) But on this Friday,…
This week, Jews around the world will observe the second Yom Kippur of the Covid era. Despite the uncertainty of the never-ending pandemic, it remains a time for taking stock of the year that was and holding out hope for better times ahead. For far too many, 5781 was a year defined by too many…
When the US was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001, I was the same age as the current cadets at West Point are now. After graduating from college, I assumed I would leave the dangers of Afghanistan to our military and focus on studying for the Jewish clergy. Growing up on the Upper East Side, Judaism…
The NYPD's only Jewish chaplain recalls the sights and sounds of 9/11
Grief is a complicated animal. I have often described its presence to my congregants as a mountain — sometimes it is across from you and you can see it, sometimes you are climbing it, sometimes you have summited it and sometimes it is just right on top of you. We do not control it, we…
In the first hours of 2020, I called the NYPD to confirm that a Jewish 15 year-old had been held up at knifepoint on a public bus. “Wow. There’s a lot of this stuff happening. What the hell,” was the officer’s response. He confirmed the incident, and told me I had missed another: in South…
It will not surprise anyone that Christianity is alive and well in the South. Take a stroll on a Sunday morning in Little Rock and you’ll see groups of young, markedly hip people with tattoos and asymmetrical haircuts gathering and chatting every few blocks. Children are everywhere, and the cheer is so contagious, you’d think…
When people across the country woke up on Wednesday, they opened their eyes to a new era of injustice. As of midnight Central Time, legal abortion was effectively banned in the state of Texas, and it’s clear the rest of our country could be headed in that direction. Although the U.S. Supreme Court had the…
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