Opinion

• 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

  4 min read
• Opinion

  Unnatural Growth

  The settlement of Beit El is nestled in the center of the West Bank, near enough to Jerusalem for a tolerable commute — an hour by bus — yet in a world of its own. It is beyond the “Green Line” marking the 1967 border, beyond the security barrier and so close to Ramallah that…

  Jun 3, 2009 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Elusive Common Ground

  All people of faith should mourn the passing of George Tiller, the Kansas physician brutally murdered for simply doing his job as one of the few doctors left in the country who performed medically necessary, late-term — legal — abortions. As much as President Obama talks about the need for common ground in the vexing…

  Jun 3, 2009 | 2 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

• Letters

  June 12, 2009

  On Judaism, Israelis Are Pro-Choice There are a couple of points worth noting with regard to your important article about the fight for religious pluralism in Israel and for fair treatment for the Masorti (or Conservative) and Reform movements (“Conservative Jews Decry Bias in IDF,” May 29). While you suggest there are only 40,000 Conservative…

  Jun 3, 2009 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Two ‘State’ Challenges

  In the weeks leading up to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s White House meetings with President Obama, the American Jewish community vigorously debated whether to support a “two-state solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Groups on the left called for Obama to press the Israeli prime minister to openly state his acceptance of the “two-state solution,” while…

  By Nathan J. Diament May 27, 2009 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Saying Kaddish Too Soon?

  ‘With a heavy heart we will soon say Kaddish on the Reform and Conservative movements,” Rabbi Norman Lamm, the distinguished chancellor of Yeshiva University, recently proclaimed in an interview with The Jerusalem Post. “The future of American Jewry is in the hands of Haredim and the Modern Orthodox.” Lamm’s triumphalistic prediction has, unsurprisingly, elicited strong…

  By Jonathan D. Sarna May 27, 2009 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  The Risky Provocations of Mr. Netanyahu

  There really must be some explanation for Prime Minister Netanyahu’s blatant snubbing of President Obama in the days since their meeting in Washington. After all, we have been told for years that Netanyahu, perhaps even more than some of his colleagues, is deeply sensitive to the importance of America’s support of Israel. Yet, since the…

  By Leonard Fein May 27, 2009 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Keeping Our Guard Up

  The announcement of a thwarted terrorist attack against Jewish synagogues in the Riverdale section of the Bronx highlighted two important issues that have emerged clearly in the new age of terror since September 11: extraordinary law enforcement cooperation and investigative operations can disrupt potentially devastating homegrown terrorist attacks in the homeland; and the terrorist threat…

  By Paul Goldenberg May 27, 2009 | 2 min read
• 
  Opinion

  Another Breakthrough

  The Supreme Court has always been a highly symbolic court, and that symbolism was on fine display when President Obama nominated Judge Sonia Sotomayor to fill the first vacant high court seat of his new administration. Americans have been treated to so many breakthrough moments since January’s historic inauguration that it’s easy to lose sight…

  May 27, 2009 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  A Real Awakening

  A “real awakening.” That’s how the residents of Riverdale described the events of the last few weeks, as their quiet Bronx neighborhood turned into a hotbed of police activity and communal angst. Fortunately, the plot hatched by a bunch of would-be terrorists targeting two synagogues and United States military aircraft was doomed from the start,…

  May 27, 2009 | 2 min read
• Letters

  June 5, 2009

  Secret Ballot Remains As the rabbinic student intern for the Jewish Labor Committee this year (and an attorney for 25 years), I have carefully studied the provisions of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) and the labor legislation it would amend. It puzzles me to repeatedly hear the inaccurate contention that EFCA would eliminate the…

  May 27, 2009 | 3 min read