Opinion

• Opinion

  Ahmadinejad Was Heard — Were We?

  And then the shofar was sounded. For the first time the crowd stood still. The sound carried to the United Nations building across First Avenue. First a long blast and then the short staccato wailing sounds, reflecting the brokenness of too many in Israel and the world today, and then again the long tekiya, as…

  By Avi Weiss

  3 min read
• Opinion

  It’s Race

  When David Letterman asked Barack Obama the other night whether he shared Jimmy Carter’s view that much of the venom directed at him could be explained by racism, the president replied with his best applause line of the show: “First of all, it’s important to realize that I was actually black before the election” —…

  By Leonard Fein Sep 23, 2009 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Time for Straight-Talk About Assimilation

  From now on, Jewish groups will likely think twice before using any variation on the word “assimilation.” That’s one lesson learned from the recent brouhaha over a 34-second commercial on Israeli television promoting the Jewish Agency’s Masa program, which brings young Jews to Israel for sustained periods of work, study and volunteering. The advertisement, which…

  By Jack Wertheimer Sep 23, 2009 | 4 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 Is the Jerusalem terror attack the start of a third intifada? Not so fast

  

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

  

The Latest

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  Opinion

  In Defense of Transgression

  Clergy sin, but they rarely advocate sin. There is an apparently apocryphal story about the famously reticent President Calvin Coolidge: Upon returning from church and being asked by his wife what the preacher spoke about, Coolidge is supposed to have answered “sin.” His wife persisted: “What did he say?” “He was against it,” Coolidge replied….

  By David Wolpe Sep 23, 2009 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  The Goldstone Disconnect

  Justice Richard Goldstone and the three other members of a panel commissioned by the United Nations Human Rights Council want Israel to investigate all the war crimes they attribute to its military operation in Gaza last winter. Otherwise, Goldstone threatens, a global court that tries such cases should judge Israel for war crimes and possible…

  By Yossi Alpher Sep 23, 2009 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  London Calling, With a Mideast Message

  In the swirl of diplomacy, intrigue and back-channel deal-making that accompanied the annual opening of the United Nations General Assembly in late September — urgent world summits on the climate and the economy, frantic Iranian nuclear negotiations, Israeli-Palestinian non-negotiations — perhaps the most unlikely mission was that of Ivan Lewis, the British deputy foreign minister…

  By J.J. Goldberg Sep 23, 2009 | 4 min read
• Letters

  October 2, 2009

  Desmond Tutu Was Not Wrong About Israel In your September 18 editorial “Despairing Words,” you take Desmond Tutu to task for “implying that Israel resembles apartheid.” Under the South African apartheid policy, blacks had to present identification periodically to legitimize a presence or activity. Today, in the West Bank, there are dozens of internal Israeli…

  Sep 23, 2009 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  Behind the Boycott

  Time was when a boycott demanded personal sacrifice as an expression of protest. That’s how the name first was coined, when Irish tenant farmers and tradesmen in the late-19th century refused to deal with the agent of an absentee landlord named Charles Boycott. And that’s how it has continued in the popular imagination: blacks in…

  Sep 23, 2009 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  Forgive Us

  The anger and incivility that characterizes our national discussions of late — on health care, presidential power and a host of other tender topics — is a troubling sign of a fraying social compact. The fabric that binds together the Jewish community is also fraying, as poll numbers show a widening gap between the attitudes…

  Sep 23, 2009 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  On Health Care, Our Fundamental Principles

  For me, a child of the 1980s, Patrick Swayze’s name will always conjure that magical moment in “Dirty Dancing” when be growls “no one puts Baby in a corner” and whisks Jennifer Grey (a nice Jewish girl) onto the stage. Captured then in his youth and grace, it seems all the more shocking that he…

  By Elissa D. Barrett Sep 23, 2009 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Knesset Moves To Ease (or Is it Tighten?) Conversion Rules

  While the attention of world Jewry was riveted on the United Nations, Israel’s Knesset quietly gave initial approval on September 22 to legislation that’s intended to ease the process of conversion to Judaism in Israel. The bill authorizes local rabbis to perform conversions at the request of would-be converts, permitting converts to seek out friendly…

  By J.J. Goldberg Sep 23, 2009 | < 1 min read