Opinion

• Letters

  October 23, 2009

  An Orthodox Exodus I was surprised and disappointed to see you print the old-school canard that the liberal streams of Judaism will inevitably disappear due to intermarriage, with only Orthodoxy thriving in the future (“The Jewish Future, in Black and White,” October 16). This outcome has been predicted for decades with no tangible proof that…

  3 min read
• Opinion

  What’s in a Name?

  Before making his mark in the Jewish world by raising millions for summer camping, Jerry Silverman made his mark in the business world by selling blue jeans and sneakers. He’s now adapting those marketing smarts to one of the toughest sells in Jewish communal life — rescuing the federation system from irrelevancy. So, it’s no…

  Oct 14, 2009 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  The Boycott and Its Discontents, or How Not To Defend Israel

  Every now and then, somebody you thought you knew does or says something so completely out of character that it catches you off-guard and forces you to look at things in new and surprising ways. Take, for example, the recent statement by the Simon Wiesenthal Center of Los Angeles, calling on “international academic and labor…

  By J.J. Goldberg Oct 12, 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

  To Understand Obama’s Nobel, Think Not of America, but of America in the World

  Just about the best analysis of Obama’s Nobel that I have yet seen is this op-ed essay by Alon Pinkas, former Israeli consul general in New York and a close ally of Ehud Barak (that’s more a compliment to Barak than to Alon). His main point is that, as I argued in an earlier blog…

  By J.J. Goldberg Oct 12, 2009 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  …And a Very Happy Whatchamacallit…

  And to all dear readers, whatever your creed or background, a very happy and sweet Shemini Atzeret — or as a former editor of mine once referred to the festival, when I told him I had swapped shifts and would be out for yet another two days: You’re Making This One Up, Right? hag sameach,…

  By J.J. Goldberg Oct 9, 2009 | < 1 min read
• Opinion

  Obama, the Double-edged Nobel Sword and that Little Blue Dress

  The Nobel committee may not have done President Obama much of a favor in awarding him the Peace Prize. At best it’s a double-edged sword. As Yediot Ahronot’s Washington correspondent Yitzhak Ben-Horin points out in a smart news analysis on the paper’s Ynet Web site (in Hebrew — not yet translated into English as I…

  By J.J. Goldberg Oct 9, 2009 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Israel’s Got a New Plan. Gee, How Come No One Thought of This Before?

  Israel is preparing to adopt a new diplomatic strategy that is nothing short of breathtaking in its originality, according to a new report in Ynet, the Yediot Ahronot Web site. It’s all spelled out in a document that was submitted yesterday (October 8) to Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Ynet reports. The new strategy reportedly starts…

  By J.J. Goldberg Oct 8, 2009 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  In the Warsaw Ghetto: Varieties of Heroism

  Let us speak of heroes. Not, mind you, the voguish kind, whether the super-powered sci-fi heroes of the NBC television show or the very nice people nominated for United Jewish Communities’ current folly, “Jewish Community Hero of the Year.” I mean the real kind, the kind before whom we stand in awe. I mean, for…

  By Leonard Fein Oct 7, 2009 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Heed the Call

  Rabbi Yitzhak Nates and four other religious activists walked into a Philadelphia gun shop in January, and told the owner they wouldn’t leave until he signed a code of conduct intended to reduce “straw purchases” — the sale of numerous firearms to a single buyer, an indirect way too many guns get into the hands…

  Oct 7, 2009 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  Horror From Hollywood

  ‘Why are female directors silent about Roman Polanski’s arrest?” asked Aviva Kempner in a post on the Forward’s Sisterhood blog. Excellent question. Kempner, a documentary film director herself, has plenty of admiration for Polanski’s artistry and, as the daughter of Holocaust survivors, sympathy for his horrible childhood fleeing Nazi terror. But in Kempner’s view —…

  Oct 7, 2009 | < 1 min read
• Letters

  October 16, 2009

  Desmond Tutu Was Not Right About Israel Desmond Tutu was wrong about Israel, and so is letter-writer Martin Hird (“Desmond Tutu Was Not Wrong About Israel,” October 2). Hird wrote: “I don’t believe anyone can argue that if not for the Holocaust the State of Israel would exist today.” A more accurate statement about the…

  Oct 7, 2009 | 2 min read