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
“We can be together,” the flyer said. Jews and Arabs. And we were. At 6 p.m. on Thursday, dozens gathered on a bridge outside Abu Gosh, a town on the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway, wearing jeans and T-shirts, dancing and singing, holding up their hopeful signs. “The solution to racism is cooperation between Jews and Arabs,”…
The youngest generation of American Jews is more diverse — and more divided — than any generation prior. At least, that’s what the the new Pew Study of American Jews reports. On Tuesday night, the Forward’s Opinion Editor Laura E. Adkins spoke with Forward columnist Alex Zeldin, Jewish Currents editor Arielle Angel, and 18Doors Chicago director Tani…
Generally speaking, American Jews are liberal and identify with the Democratic Party. That is, apparently, unless you are Orthodox. The new Pew study released this week found that 75% of Orthodox Jews identify as Republican, up from 57% in 2013, the last time a similar survey was conducted. None of this, I would venture, is…
From my 12 years at Jewish Day School, I remember countless assemblies and programs showcasing videos of Israeli missile alert sirens, followed by civilians running to shelters and, often, the Iron Dome’s missile interceptions. Despite the fact that we were in America, we were taught to feel personally connected to Israelis being bombarded by missiles,…
It is with heartbreak and concern that so many American Jewish adults are gazing towards the Middle East. But what do American Jewish children know about the current violence in Israel and Gaza? And how ought the adults who love them—parents, grandparents, and teachers—talk with them about it? As a social scientist who studies Jewish…
As I write, the sirens have stopped wailing, the Iron Dome has finished its dull thumping, and people have left the bomb shelters. Gaza’s rocketeers have switched their sights from my hometown Beit Shemesh, but the sky over Tel Aviv is now lit up with a murderous pyrotechnic display. Across Israel, tens of thousands of…
In suburban Boston during the 1990s, I once caught a glimpse of a Black man wearing a kippah as he exited a shop next to my daughter’s gymnastics class. After dropping her off, I doubled-back to approach him gingerly. Or maybe not so gingerly. “Hey you!” I yelled — startling him, but beginning what Rick…
Two months ago, the chair of a board for a national Jewish organization shared that intermarriage keeps him up at night. There was nothing new about his concern. Jewish worry around intermarriage is ancient, springing from the Torah itself and millennia of commentary. For centuries, when a Jew chose to “marry out,” families sat shiva….
Every day, I read about our complicated world in the news. And I ask myself: what would my father think about this? And what would he have done? Many days, it’s not easy to know. But I’m relieved to know that the answer today is clear. Rockets have been launched at Ashdod, Ashkelon, Tel Aviv…
(JTA) — In Sheldon Oberman’s children’s book “The Always Prayer Shawl,” a grandfather passes on his tallit to his grandson along with the sage advice, “Some things change and some things don’t.” At public readings, Oberman wore his grandfather’s tallit, which had inspired the story. When a non-Jewish author told him that she wished she…
Read this article in Yiddish. When I heard that the Pew Research Center was releasing its new report on American Jewish identity, and that it had added more measures of expressing Jewishness than it did in its landmark 2013 study, I was sure that “learning Yiddish” or “engaging in Yiddish culture” would be included. After…
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