Opinion

• 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…

  3 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
• 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…

  May 20, 2009 | 2 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

  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
• 
  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