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
“The healthcare system is the embodiment of co-existence and shared life!” the Israeli Minister of Health Yuli Edelstein wrote in an internal letter addressed to the country’s health sector employees last Thursday. We received this letter while watching our TVs anxiously, refreshing news outlets and social media on our smartphones, trying to get the latest…
The current cycle of violence between Israel and the Palestinians dispels two major illusions. The first regards the impact of the Abraham Accords of September 2020, which normalized relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. In announcing the Accords, President Donald Trump boldly declared that “(a)fter decades of division and conflict, we…
The day before Shavuot, I had just returned home after spending time in Ashkelon, Sderot, and the Gaza periphery region, where I was assisting people who have been under constant rocket attack for the past two weeks as a first responder with United Hatzalah. I had spent my time treating the injured, evacuating buildings that…
On Sunday night a new front opened up in the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict: John Oliver’s mouth. The comedian, whose commentary segments on his “Last Week Tonight” HBO series often out-report reporters, this time slammed Israel in its week-long battle against Hamas, the Islamic militant group that controls Gaza. “Multiple children have been killed this week…
This is a terribly distressing time in Israel and Palestine. There is so much pain. The lack of empathy that each side feels for the other is the basic pathology of this crazy holy broken place. Palestinians cheer as Israeli life is disrupted by Hamas rockets. On the first night of the rockets I was…
While far too much in the latest escalation between Israel and Gaza militants is tragically familiar, the new and in many ways most frightening aspect is the internal Arab-Jewish violence plaguing Israel’s so-called mixed cities that many have worried could spiral into a civil war. Arab rioters have torched synagogues and Jewish-owned businesses. Mobs of…
“We’re gonna die…” is becoming the first common, grim, and indescribably guilting thing I hear from the many people I cherish in Gaza, uttered almost subconsciously at the start of each conversation. “This is pure madness” is the second. And even “madness” falls critically short of describing what my family and friends have to endure….
As rockets continue to crisscross the skies between the Mediterranean Sea and Jordan River, as horrific riots break out in cities from Lod to Ashkelon, a more far-flung front has opened up as a result of the violence in Israel: a war for public opinion here in the United States. Just as the scale of…
“The softer sirens come with softer bangs,” observed my 12 year-old at 3 a.m., as we went into our Mamad (bomb-safe room) during the third siren, last night in Jaffa. The siren is loud, as are the bangs that follow – typically the sound of the Iron Dome missiles hitting the Gazan rockets. Sometimes we…
Sixty years ago, on May 14, 1961, one of two buses carrying an interracial group of Freedom Riders was firebombed on the outskirts of Anniston, Ala. The riders barely escaped with their lives, only to be beaten by the mob outside. Of lesser import but nonetheless seared into America’s collective memory was the fate of…
This is an adaptation of Looking Forward, a weekly email from our editor-in-chief sent on Friday afternoons. Sign up here to get the Forward’s free newsletters delivered to your inbox. And click here for a PDF of stories to savor over Shabbat and Sunday that you can download and print. I made a lentil soup…
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