Magazine Cruises Offer Opportunity To Unite A November 26 article describes how The Weekly Standard and The Nation magazines have taken to the high seas as part of their respective fundraising efforts (“From Port to Starboard, Magazines Take to High Seas Towing the Party Line”). With much irony, the Forward inveighs against the bourgeois underpinnings…
Building Ties to Israel: A Priority for Movement A November 12 article suggests an unawareness of the Reconstructionist movement’s connections to Israel through the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College (“Reconstructionists Boost Focus on Israel”). The Reconstructionist movement’s only rabbinical college requires that its students spend a year studying in Israel. Recently we more than doubled our Israel…
Ginsburg’s Roots Just As Just as Bush Picks As a Jewish Republican, I often hear from my Democratic friends that they are concerned President Bush will nominate religious conservatives to the Supreme Court. They tell me they are afraid Bush will ignore the law and instead follow his own religious beliefs. Yet the Forward saw…
Shuls Without a Prayer The picture of Szeged Synagogue mentioned in an October 29 article caught my attention, because my husband and I visited it in 2000 (“Built Judaism: How Synagogue Photography Opens Worlds”). The restored synagogue, with its cobalt blues and gold inlay, is truly awesome. I believe that Tony Curtis, the movie actor,…
Without ‘Peoplehood,’ Judaism Is Meaningless When I began my career as a rabbi some 25 years ago, I was told by a senior colleague to “be prepared for everything and be surprised about nothing.” Over the course of the years, I have generally followed this sage advice, and there is very little that can shock…
Outreach to Emigrés I read with great interest the first installment of the Forward’s series on Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union (“After 25 Years, Soviet Emigrés Still Strangers,” October 15). I look forward to reading the final two articles in this series. I hope that they strike a more balanced picture of the…
Our Invisible Poor Of course the leaders of Jewish organizations are amazed that there is such a thing as poor Jews in the United States — they only deal with other rich Jews (“Nearly a Million Living in Poor Jewish Households,” October 8). Poor Jews, like the poor of the United States in general, are…
Promote Discourse On Leaders’ Israel Stance An October 1 letter to the editor mirrors almost to the word a complaint sent to me via e-mail by Ira Foreman, executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council, following the inclusion of my thoughts on the potential for mischief inherent in the Senator John Kerry campaign’s evocation…
Key to Social Security Is Reforming Program It is odd that the Forward has chosen to at long last address the issue of the red ink that is a daunting part of our future, given the fact that I cannot recall another instance in which the editors objected to any spending proposals put forward heretofore…
In Bush We Trust Columnist Leonard Fein finds it difficult to understand why 46% of voters “imagine that Bush is more trustworthy than Kerry regarding Supreme Court nominations” (“Heads I Win, Tails You Lose,” September 17). As a member of that 46%, let me explain. A president’s Supreme Court nominations are more likely to be…
‘Madness’ Didn’t Drive The Butchers of Beslan The shocking outcome of the hostage taking at Beslan was described appropriately in your editorial, “The Madness of Beslan” (September 10), as depraved and horrifying. But calling it “madness” serves only to confuse a moral issue with a medical one: madness or psychosis. It is crucial to understand…
דאָס בוך איז גרונטיק געפֿאָרשט, לעבעדיק אָנגעשריבן — אָבער אידעאָלאָגיש באַפֿאַרבט
