Opinion

• Opinion

  Reframing Liberal Judaism

  The Union for Reform Judaism convenes early next month in Toronto for its Biennial Convention, and the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism will follow with its biennial in December. These gatherings are opportunities for the two largest denominations in North American Judaism to take stock of the big picture. Looking at the big picture should…

  By Ben Dreyfus

  3 min read
• Opinion

  An Israel Espionage Drama, Sans Israel

  Fans of Israeli espionage melodrama are having a hard time digesting the latest episode, the October 19 arrest of scientist Stewart David Nozette on charges of trying to spy for Israel. From what’s known so far, the case seems to defy traditional understandings of Israel as either victim or menace. For that sub-group of Israel-boosters…

  By J.J. Goldberg Oct 21, 2009 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  The Invisible Soldiers

  After Debra Nussbaum Cohen’s story on Jews in the U.S. military was published last week, a reader asked: “How can synagogues here in the U.S. lend support to our Jewish American soldiers?” First, by acknowledging their existence. In many Jewish communities, it’s easier to name an American serving in the Israel Defense Forces than in…

  Oct 21, 2009 | 3 min read

Columnists View All

• Jodi Rudoren This is my last column as editor of the Forward

  

• Jay Michaelson American Jews were played — now what?

  

• Rob Eshman A billionaire Gen Z influencer is reinventing philanthropy — with this South African rabbi’s help

  

• Nora Berman Is Netflix’s new show the most Jewish cartoon ever?

  

• Dan Perry Israel is not deliberately killing journalists in Gaza. But it does bear responsibility for their deaths

  

• Emily Tamkin Trump’s attack on George Soros is ludicrous. It also endangers Jews (and everyone else)

  

The Latest

• Opinion

  Saving Sudan

  President Obama’s predilection for finding diplomatic compromises for knotty world conflicts won him the Nobel Peace Prize, but it doesn’t always play well at home, where engagement can be ridiculed as naïve or wishy-washy. Sometimes, though, it’s the only way to thread the needle. And the president seems to have done just that with his…

  Oct 21, 2009 | < 1 min read
• Opinion

  Who Are You Calling Nazi? Why, Pretty Much Everybody.

  The Anti-Defamation League reports in an October 15 press release that it has received an apology from the president of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Liberty Commission, Richard Land, for a September 26 speech to the Christian Coalition in which he described the congressional Democrats’ health care reforms as “exactly what the Nazis did.” In…

  By J.J. Goldberg Oct 19, 2009 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Mysteries of the Church: The Bishops Blink … Sort of

  America’s Catholic bishops, responding to Jewish protests, are backing away from a controversial policy statement they issued last June in which interfaith dialogue was portrayed as a forum for promoting Christianity. Jewish organizations that partner with the church in ongoing, formal dialogue, here and in Rome, had warned in August that the controversial June statement…

  By J.J. Goldberg Oct 18, 2009 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Goldstone’s Legacy

  Even if granted the very best of intentions, Richard Goldstone’s report on Israel’s and Hamas’s conduct during last winter’s military operation in Gaza has left a bitter and confusing legacy. Bitter, because rather than being a constructive prod toward self-examination of the morality of a new kind of warfare, the report has left Israel only…

  Oct 14, 2009 | 3 min read
• 
  Opinion

  Denial on the Temple Mount

  In recent weeks, Palestinian religious and political leaders have brought tensions over Jerusalem’s Temple Mount to a boil. During Sukkot, Jerusalem’s muezzins called on Palestinians to rally around the Al-Aqsa Mosque, reportedly warning that “Jews will try to break into it.” A little more than a week earlier, Palestinian worshipers at the site hurled rocks…

  By Daniel Levin Oct 14, 2009 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  A Nobel Future?

  At last I have use of the word: Surprize! For that is surely the least that can be said about this year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner, Barack Obama. But enough about that, maybe even too much. It’s a different Nobel Prize, with larger ramifications, that I find fascinating — to wit, this year’s prize in…

  By Leonard Fein Oct 14, 2009 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  J Street and Main Street: The Israel Lobby We Need

  When J Street’s supporters gather in Washington later this month for the dovish Israel advocacy group’s first national conference, they will have no shortage of things to celebrate. In the year and a half since its launch, the self-proclaimed “political arm of the pro-Israel, pro-peace movement” has made itself a major player in the Jewish…

  By Daniel Treiman Oct 14, 2009 | 5 min read
• 
  Opinion

  Why Antonin Scalia Was So Influential — and Bad for the Jews

  Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died suddenly at 79. His legacy is that of a staunch conservative and religious traditionalist. J.J. Goldberg explains in this 2009 piece why his views were so dangerous for Jews. Justice Antonin Scalia is rightly known as the most conservative member of the very conservative Supreme Court led by…

  By J.J. Goldberg Oct 14, 2009 | 4 min read