Opinion

• Opinion

  Brandeis and the ‘Empathy’ Issue

  In January 1916, just a few days after Woodrow Wilson nominated Louis D. Brandeis to the Supreme Court, Gus Karger, a journalist and a friend of Wilson’s predecessor, William Howard Taft, told the former president that “many Senators who might base their opposition to him on sound and logical grounds, if he were a Presbyterian,…

  By Melvin I. Urofsky

  4 min read
• Opinion

  The Truth Walks Into a Court in Jaffa

  A rare visitor called on Israeli society recently, and we almost didn’t notice. The visit occurred last month during the trial of an Israeli army officer who was charged with beating a Palestinian he was “questioning” in the West Bank village of Qadoum. The officer’s attorneys asked his brigade commander to testify in his defense,…

  By Michael Sfard Jun 10, 2009 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  People of the Weekly Newspaper

  A former colleague of mine from the Forward once mentioned that his mother, raised in New Jersey, is a lifelong reader of the New Jersey Jewish News, where I am now the editor-in-chief. Not only a reader, but a close one, who even noticed when I changed the little picture that accompanies the column I…

  By Andrew Silow-Carroll Jun 10, 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 Charlie Kirk and Alan Berg: 2 murders, 41 years apart, show the painful perils of polarization

  

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

  

• Dan Perry Israel’s strike in Qatar: An audacious bid for victory, or just another foolhardy provocation?

  

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

  

The Latest

• Opinion

  In Cairo, a Home Run — and an Error

  When it comes down to it, I am glad, even relieved, not to be president of the United States. That’s not to say there aren’t not some pretty nifty perks that come with the job — no security lines at the airport, no running out of laundry detergent or pita chips, no traffic jams, first-run…

  By Leonard Fein Jun 10, 2009 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  CEOs Should Lead

  In his new book on Jewish leadership, Rabbi David Teutsch reminds us that one of the most important aspects of leadership is serving as a role model. “You can say a great deal, but what you do is much more powerful than anything you can say,” he writes. “The synagogue whose president never attends services…

  Jun 10, 2009 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Montgomery to Ramallah

  President Obama’s June 4 address in Cairo to the Muslim world has by now been thoroughly parsed, analyzed and critiqued with Talmudic intensity. Stunning and significant, the address also left some listeners wanting more — more about their pain and others’ responsibilities. Some complained about things that were in the speech, and some complained about…

  Jun 10, 2009 | 2 min read
• Letters

  June 19, 2009

  Settlement Growth Is Legitimate, Natural Your June 12 editorial “Unnatural Growth” contends that there’s “nothing natural, or acceptable, about ‘natural growth’” of Jewish communities in the West Bank, and that, in focusing on this issue, President Obama isn’t being unreasonable, whereas Prime Minister Netanyahu is. Not so. There are communities of between 10,000 and 35,000…

  Jun 10, 2009 | 3 min read
• 
  Opinion

  Ignore the Theatrics, Bibi Just Wants To Build

  The show goes on. As I write, a radio newscaster is repeating an item about the evacuation of an illegal settlement outpost in the West Bank: At Nahalat Yosef, near Nablus, the army demolished two makeshift mobile homes and removed a third, thereby erasing the outpost. Settler leaders promised to rebuild it. Judging from past…

  By Gershom Gorenberg Jun 3, 2009 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Fighting Tuberculosis, From Terezin to Today

  Tuberculosis should not be a death sentence in 2009. It wasn’t for me nearly 70 years ago after I contracted the disease in the Terezin concentration camp in what was then Czechoslovakia. But today, nearly 2 million people die from TB each year, an unconscionable number of lives lost to a preventable, curable disease. I…

  By Inge Auerbacher Jun 3, 2009 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  How Not To Protect the Jewish State

  During his recent visit to the United States, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated his demand that Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state should be a precondition for talks aimed at achieving a peace settlement. While such a request might seem reasonable — after all, Israel is a Jewish state — it is actually…

  By Eric Yoffie Jun 3, 2009 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  On Settlements, Push Comes to Shove

  Is the sky really falling? The answer depends on whether you think the current disagreement between Washington and Jerusalem is just another bump in the road — perhaps a bit more jolting than most, but hardly unprecedented — or an instance of push finally coming to shove, a prospective game-changer. The best evidence that America’s…

  By Leonard Fein Jun 3, 2009 | 4 min read