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
(JTA) — This article first appeared on Kveller. On Thursday evening, as I was just about to close my computer, I saw the news alert from The New York Times: “Breaking News: At least 15 people are dead and dozens are injured after a stampede at a religious celebration in Israel.” A surge of panic…
Israelis who wish to end the seemingly infinite tenure of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have in recent days pinned their hopes on a new idea: the prospect of a national-unity government led by Naftali Bennett, a former defense minister who heads the right-wing Yamina party. In theory, this Bennett-led government would be non-ideological, and the…
If you do nothing else over Shabbat on May 14 and 15, whether you go to shul or not, say kaddish. And say it for George Floyd. Say his name. George Floyd was killed on May 25, or 2 Sivan, which corresponds to May 13 this year. If it is your tradition on the following…
Every tragedy seems to cry out for an explanation. Initial explanations are practical and outline the worldly reasons why a terrible event occurred. For believers there is an additional burden — the question of how God could allow such suffering. The deaths on Lag B’Omer at the tomb of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai on Mount…
To the editor, My heart is breaking, because Rabbi Sheldon Zimmerman, this week accused of “sexually predatory behavior,” is my beloved rabbi and teacher, a mentor who helped me on the road to my career as a rabbi. (“Reform Rabbinic giant disciplined for inappropriate relationships now accused of ‘sexually predatory behavior.’”) As a congregant at…
While President Biden made mention of immigration reform in his first address to Congress this week, the fate of refugees was conspicuously absent. After weeks of whiplash for refugees and their advocates, we’re still waiting for clarity on a path forward. On April 16, President Biden announced he would maintain the limit on the number…
What happened in Paris on April 4, 2017 was unspeakable. Kobili Traoré, an immigrant from Mali, burst into the apartment of his neighbor, Sarah Halimi, a 65-year-old retired doctor. Shouting antisemitic invective, Traoré battered Halimi and then threw her to her death from the window of her third-story apartment, exclaiming “Allahu akhbar” and that he…
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. My daughter nudged me as…
I heard the story countless times. My great-grandfather Raphael, an Arab Jew who was born in Jerusalem, died when my grandfather was 13. Raphael had two business partners. One partner, who was a European Jew, took advantage of the bereft widow, and stole our family’s livelihood. The other partner, an Arab and fellow Jerusalemite, saved…
In a recent meeting with a representative of the United Nations, I was asked to suggest concepts that would capture the suffering my family and loved ones in Gaza endure. I froze for a moment, not only because of the surprise of a legal scholar unsuccessfully looking for a concept that would precisely capture Gaza’s…
Human Rights Watch could do with a new pair of glasses. The organization’s new report, “A Threshold Crossed — Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution,” is blind to fact and reality. Every paragraph in the 213-page diatribe serves one goal: brand Israel as an apartheid state. I left South Africa as a…
דער פּאָעט ירמיה אַהרן טאַוב רעדט וועגן זײַן ענגלישער איבערזעצונג פֿון פֿרומע האַלפּערנס בוך „געבענטשטע הענט“
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