Choose your location
The Forward
My friend is making antisemitic comments. What should I say? PS: I’m not Jewish
A Bintel Brief, Yiddish for a bundle of letters, has been solving reader dilemmas since 1906. Send yours via email, social media or this form. Dear Bintel, My best friend is turning more and more antisemitic and I don’t know how to handle it. Just for context, neither of us is Jewish and we live...
Why Hebrew is showing up in unexpected places — and why that matters
In the past few months, I have encountered three new English-language books that all have Hebrew in them. Though it’s become fairly common for English language books to contain snippets of Spanish — Promises of Gold by José Olivarez, for instance, or Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao —blending Hebrew and English,...
How blacklisted Hollywood artists joined forces to make a truly subversive film
Released in 1954, The Salt of the Earth, which was arguably the only major US indie film made by Jewish leftists, was a product of the enduring optimism of progressive thinking. It was directed by Herbert Biberman, one of the so-called Hollywood Ten, a group of leftist filmmakers (six of them Jews) blacklisted and jailed...
In the face of authoritarianism, a subversive play forces us to confront our own complicity
There’s a particularly indelible moment toward the end of How to Eat an Orange, Catherine Filloux’s world-premiere play about the prolific Argentinean artist-activist Claudia Bernardi. Moments before displaying a vibrant mural that was created in response to a 1981 massacre in El Salvador, Claudia (Paula Pizzi) recalls, wrenchingly, exhuming the bones of the young victims....
In the face of authoritarianism, a subversive play forces us to confront our own complicity
There’s a particularly indelible moment toward the end of How to Eat an Orange, Catherine Filloux’s world-premiere play about the prolific Argentinean artist-activist Claudia Bernardi. Moments before displaying a vibrant mural that was created in response to a 1981 massacre in El Salvador, Claudia (Paula Pizzi) recalls, wrenchingly, exhuming the bones of the young victims....
In Normandy, a Jewish D-Day veteran buried in a Nazi mass grave will receive a proper burial 80 years later
Growing up, Samantha Baskind’s father would sometimes mention his “Uncle Nate,” who stormed the beaches of Normandy on D-Day. He called Nate “a great Jewish American war hero,” often just around Memorial Day, Baskind recalled. “He would always use that exact same phrase.” There’s a family picture of Nate in his mid-twenties, just before shipping...
Dallas ‘Maus’? Or are the NBA Finals making you see things?
You stare at a word long enough and it starts to dissipate. You stare at an NBA jersey long enough and the team name starts to … recall a graphic novel about the Holocaust? The Dallas Mavericks have apparently been in the NBA playoffs long enough — they’re in the NBA Finals, which begin Thursday...
Crown Heights mourns Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky, a pivotal figure in Chabad’s global outreach
When Shmuel Spielman’s brother-in-law and sister-in-law were murdered in the 2008 Mumbai terror attack, he found support from Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky. A leading figure in the Chabad-Lubavitch community, Kotlarsky was known for his efforts to build the Hasidic movement’s global outreach and for his personal ties with community members. Rabbi Gabi and Rivky Holtzberg, slain...
Jewish US Army Major explains why he resigned over US support for Gaza war
An American Jewish military intelligence officer has resigned to protest U.S. support for Israel in its war against Hamas in Gaza, saying that what is happening to the Palestinians there reminds him of the Holocaust. Major Harrison Mann submitted his resignation to the military and the Defense Intelligence Agency in November. He announced it publicly...
Analysis: It’s not working with Netanyahu. Can Biden find a better Israeli partner for peace?
Despite growing frustration with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of the war in Gaza and lack of vision for a post-war peace, President Joe Biden has softened his comments on the Israeli leader in recent days. Since outlining an Israeli proposal for a hostage deal on Friday, the president has tried to give Netanyahu...
Columbia settles suit with Jewish student over encampments, promising additional security
Columbia University has settled a lawsuit brought against it by a Jewish student alleging a hostile environment as a result of the pro-Palestinian encampment movement. The settlement is a major development in Jewish groups’ efforts to hold universities accountable in light of a reported increase in campus antisemitism since Oct. 7. As part of the...
In Blaze Bernstein murder trial, mother of accused testifies about his troubled childhood
SANTA ANA, Calif. – With her son facing first-degree murder and hate crime charges for the death of Blaze Bernstein, Michele Woodward provided hundreds of pages of family history to aid his defense. In his opening statement, Samuel Woodward’s attorney said those documents — along with hours of interviews she had given defense investigators —...
A dream of a utopian Black-Jewish music collaboration is going forward — even after the war in Gaza complicated it
When Jewish-American saxophonist Matthew Levy was on tour in Croatia in 2018, he visited an exhibition about “Entartete Musik,” degenerate music, as the Nazis called work that didn’t conform to their racist ideology. He saw a poster of a Black sax player wearing a Jewish star. The poster disgusted Levy, who’d grown up in a...
German Holocaust reparations increase again this year, but plateau expected as survivors perish
The German government has agreed to allocate $1.5 billion in Holocaust reparations this year, setting a new record for how much the country is spending to support survivors. The increase from a total of $1.4 billion last year is due to a rise in the amount the government is paying to reimburse survivors’ medical expenses....
‘Israelism,’ the progressive Jewish documentary roiling college campuses, gets digital release
They wanted to capture a growing Jewish generational divide over Israel. The Jewish makers of “Israelism” accomplished that — and then some. Over the last seven months, the documentary critiquing the American Jewish relationship to Israel has become something closer to a foundational text for the campus pro-Palestinian movement. It’s been screened at more than...
How D-Day saved Europe, and my family, from the Nazis
Thursday marks the 80th anniversary of D-Day, the Allied landings along the Normandy coast during World War II. Most Americans are somewhat aware of D-Day and to some it may even stand out as a pivotal moment in the history of Western civilization. To me, the anniversary of D-Day is highly personal. Were it not...
Is this a Hitler documentary worth watching?
There is no documentary subject more urgent and more overexposed than Hitler and the Nazis. So great is the glut of TV shows devoted to the Third Reich that you can take your pick of subgenres — a pop psychological profile of Hitler, National Geographic’s investigation into the Nazi fascination with the occult and fare...
How the war nearly tore apart Israel’s only Arab-Jewish women’s choir
JAFFA, Israel — Members of the local women’s choir arrived for rehearsal one recent Tuesday with baked goods and hugs. They stretched, massaged each other’s shoulders and backs, then took their places — altos on one side of the room, sopranos on the other — to align their posture, synchronize their breathing and warm their...
Hamas’ leaders hold Netanyahu’s political future in their hands. The outcome will remake Israel
Israel has reached a pivot point that could potentially change the course of the Gaza war — already the longest Israel has fought since 1949 — and either ruin or resuscitate Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political career. If Hamas accepts the plan, Netanyahu’s government may collapse. Some of the extremist parties on whose support it...
AIPAC taps its No. 2, Elliot Brandt, to be its next CEO at uncertain time for U.S.-Israel relations
The next leader of AIPAC will be Elliot Brandt, who has served as a senior official of the pro-Israel lobby for decades and will take the helm shortly after the November elections, as Israel faces volatile conflicts on multiple fronts. Brandt, currently the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s vice CEO, will succeed longtime CEO Howard...
The Forward
171+
Posts
652K+
Views
The Forward is the nation’s most widely read Jewish news outlet, a fiercely independent and non-ideological source for news, culture and opinion across the political spectrum.
Welcome to NewsBreak, an open platform where diverse perspectives converge. Most of our content comes from established publications and journalists, as well as from our extensive network of tens of thousands of creators who contribute to our platform. We empower individuals to share insightful viewpoints through short posts and comments. It’s essential to note our commitment to transparency: our Terms of Use acknowledge that our services may not always be error-free, and our Community Standards emphasize our discretion in enforcing policies. We strive to foster a dynamic environment for free expression and robust discourse through safety guardrails of human and AI moderation. Join us in shaping the news narrative together.