Opinion

• Opinion

  The Special Relationship

  Let us hope that more substance was discussed and debated behind closed doors than in front of the cameras. In front of the cameras, President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did what was expected and, indeed, necessary after their first meeting since both assumed office: The widely popular but untested president and the…

  2 min read
• Opinion

  Leave the Gleanings

  Shavuot, the biblical Festival of Weeks, arrives on May 29 this year, with a special urgency. Holidays on the Jewish calendar often speak to us with particular force at pivotal moments in our communal lives – Passover, for example, with its theme of freedom, or Yom Kippur with its call for repentance. This year, we…

  May 20, 2009 | 2 min read
• Letters

  May 29, 2009

  At Home in the South I felt obliged to respond to Allison Gaudet Yarrow’s article “Southern Fried Jewish Bride” in your May 1 edition. I am a Jewish woman living in Macon, Ga., the city where Yarrow was raised. I have lived in this city for 35 years, having moved here from the Midwest. My…

  May 20, 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

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  Opinion

  On Shavuot, a Covenantal Reminder

  Tikkun olam — perfecting the world — is the belle of the ball of modern Jewish thought. And perhaps it deserves to be. The Jewish teaching that this planet can and will be transformed into a world of justice, equality, peace and human dignity has had a revolutionary impact on human history. But the coming…

  By Irving Greenberg May 20, 2009 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  When Doves Can’t Flock Together

  Twenty-four years ago this month, then-defense minister Yitzhak Rabin appointed me military governor of the West Bank. In two years in that post, I learned that reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians is both feasible and necessary. In 1988, after I had retired from military service, Rabin and then-foreign minister Shimon Peres asked me to lead…

  By Ephraim Sneh May 20, 2009 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  A ‘Nakba’ for Freedom of Expression

  There are about two million Native Americans in the United States. Let us imagine that they decide to commemorate one of the cruelest chapters in their history, the forced expulsion of the Cherokee Nation from Georgia in 1838 and 1839. They were marched a thousand miles to Oklahoma, where those who had survived the march…

  By Leonard Fein May 20, 2009 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Media Roundup: TV Stars at the Mikveh, Against Curly Hair

  • Whoa! Guess who’s a regular mikveh-goer? “Blossom” star and neuroscientist Mayim Bialik. Makes sense: Her name means “water” in Hebrew. Read Jewcy’s recent Q&A with her here. • Speaking of going to the mikveh, the 5 Towns Jewish Times has a feature on MikvahCalendar.com, a new Web site that helps women calculate when they’re…

  By Gabrielle Birkner May 18, 2009 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  Real Freedom of Choice

  The Employee Free Choice Act is a worthy, if flawed, response to a fundamental inadequacy in federal labor law: Too often, workers are not free to choose whether or not to join a union. No side is always in the wrong here; the freedom to choose has been threatened by bullying, coercion and manipulation by…

  May 13, 2009 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Why We Fight About FDR

  Some days it feels like Franklin Delano Roosevelt is still in the White House, jauntily waving his cigarette holder, tossing back his head and smiling as debate rages over his policies. The Obama administration’s first hundred days are so frequently touted as the second coming of FDR that some columnists have begun reminding the public…

  By Gregory J. Wallance May 13, 2009 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Loving Jerusalem, With Maturity

  On May 21, Jerusalemites, barely recovered from a city shut down by a papal visit, will brace themselves for yet another round of massive gridlock. Throngs of religious-nationalist youth will take over the center of town. Yeshiva students will march en masse into the Old City, in celebration of the “reunification” of Jerusalem in 1967….

  By Daniel Seidemann May 13, 2009 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Was the Right Right About Obama?

  During the 2008 campaign, there were many Jewish Democrats who said — and probably believed — that Barack Obama would be a better friend to Israel than would John McCain. They argued that Obama would cement friendships with moderate Arab states and extricate us from the Iraq adventure that had done so much to antagonize…

  By Noam Neusner May 13, 2009 | 3 min read