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
As the Taliban entered Kabul, one former translator for the U.S. military felt she was living through a horror movie. “Nobody wants to leave their home because they don’t know if they’ll make it back alive,” she told me via WhatsApp on Wednesday. “The past 20 years feel like a dream. Overnight everything has changed.”…
Akedah Fulcher-Eze grew up in a Black and Orthodox Jewish family in the Brooklyn, New York neighborhood of Crown Heights and lived there during the violence of Aug. 19-21, 1991. Her family was well known to both Black and Jewish residents, and they were not alone, she says; the neighborhood was home to about a…
Having this conversation is going to save a life — and likely more than one. Nearly 100,000 people died from a drug overdose in the United States last year, a dramatic increase from 2019. While the stress of the pandemic likely drove many to despair, it’s also a fact, proven over and over again, that…
Just weeks after U.S. forces and their allies in the Northern Alliance had routed the Taliban from most of Afghanistan, the NY Daily News assigned me to accompany an odd delegation to the country on a 24-hour visit. It was Dec. 2001, and unlimited new prospects still seemed possible for the ancient land. I took…
Why is this study different from other studies? Read the Forward’s story on this groundbreaking report. If you’re looking for a guide to the perplexities of “Beyond the Count: Perspectives and Lived Experiences of Jews of Color,” a good start might be not to think of it as one single study. It’s really two, and…
It’s time for Jews to join with Palestinians and engage in intercommunal civil resistance to the Israeli occupation. Though ending this vicious regime depends on a multitude of factors, joint nonviolent resistance by Palestinians and Jews constitutes an essential element. We are both a part of this living, binational movement against the ongoing oppression of…
With virtually every party leader calling for his resignation, Gov. Andrew Cuomo had little choice but to step down. Yet it took Cuomo 89 seconds into his resignation speech on Tuesday to get to I’m-sorry-you’re-offended — which he followed with excuses, swipes at his accusers and denials of bad behavior. My colleague Mira Fox wrote…
As a rabbi, I want to do the right thing for my congregation. But what is the right thing? I am the spiritual leader of a small synagogue in Sarasota, Fla. My congregation is older, and the COVID-19 pandemic has been especially devastating to them. The unexpected isolation was bad enough, but when it continued…
There were dozens of stories — dozens! — of being called a dirty Jew or a Christ-killer, mostly in the tender days of elementary school. Many reported being asked about their horns — not in a joking way. Even more recalled someone bragging about having “Jewed down” an opponent in negotiations. Ten days ago, I…
In 2017, I was a high school junior who usually struggled to wake up on time for school. And yet, at 5:30 am one morning in early March, I sat wide-eyed on my family room couch, watching a baseball game. It was the opening game of the 2017 World Baseball Classic, the foremost international baseball…
With the appointment of Professor Deborah Lipstadt as the new Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, attention will focus on the Biden Administration’s plans to confront the persistent scourge of antisemitism which has increased in the wake of the COVID pandemic and the recent conflict. She will have an enormous task taking on the…
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