Opinion

• 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

  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

Columnists View All

• Jay Michaelson What can really be done to prevent antisemitic attacks like Bondi Beach?

  

• Rob Eshman Australia shooting terrifies Jews worldwide — and strengthens the case for Israel

  

• Nora Berman Did crypto-Jews invent the modern tarot deck?

  

• Dan Perry An Israeli media mainstay is crumbling. Will liberal democracy go with it?

  

• Emily Tamkin The Holocaust survivor writer who can help us through this ominous era

  

The Latest

• 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
• 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

  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