Opinion

• Opinion

  Beware the Right’s Rise in Hungary

  Hungary is home to one of the most vibrant Jewish communities in all of Europe, some 100,000 strong. Budapest, the capital, features more Jewish schools, synagogues, theaters and social organizations than any other European city east of Paris. For all its vibrancy, though, the second-largest Jewish community in continental Europe now finds itself in the…

  By Eric Frey

  4 min read
• Opinion

  The Song Remains the Same

  Among my friends, there are several who travel back and forth to Israel four or five times a year, sometimes even more. Perhaps the magic wears off, the trip becomes entirely routine. I manage one or two trips a year, and though there have by now been many trips, stretching back more than half a…

  By Leonard Fein Jun 17, 2008 | 4 min read
• 
  Opinion

  Bush’s Bluffing Has Made Mideast Peace a Bad Bet

  From Taba to Tony, from the Rose Garden to Riyadh, from Geneva to Gaza — in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, no American president has been presented with more opportunities for reaching a true and lasting peace than George W. Bush. But with just a half a year to go before he leaves the…

  By Michael Shtender-Auerbach Jun 12, 2008 | 5 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

  Courting the Gentile Vote

  America’s Jewish community has a clinical obsession with Israel-related issues. The Israel-related mutterings of political candidates are picked over like the stool of future Chinese emperors. If a candidate forgets a certain phrase, or ventures even a slightly extreme reading of American’s Middle East policy, either too left or too right, such is cause for…

  By Noam Neusner Jun 12, 2008 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  How To Reach ‘Generation Save the [Insert Cause Here]’

  I don’t normally crusade for political causes. In fact, this is the first time I’ve ever been moved to speak out publicly. Granted, I’m only 17 years old, but it’s a milestone nonetheless. I didn’t think it would come to this when I went to hear a recent lecture by Ali Abunimah, a co-founder of…

  By Hannah Niebulski Jun 12, 2008 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  We Ought To Ask Why

  From a multitude of sources comes the disturbing news that far too many of our soldiers are committing suicide upon return to the United States from Iraq, or while still in country. We ought to ask why. Perhaps we may get a clue from a portion of the great novel “Brothers Karamazov,” in which the…

  By Gus Tyler Jun 12, 2008 | 1 min read
• Opinion

  We Live in a World of Judaisms

  At our Seder table, the Four Questions are introduced by a brief commentary noting that they are meant as illustrations of question-asking, be the questions trivial, picayune or cosmic. Anything goes. (Except, of course, “When do we eat?”) In that spirit, I’ve decided that it may be useful now and then to pose questions that…

  By Leonard Fein Jun 12, 2008 | 4 min read
• Letters

  June 20, 2008

  Chaplaincy Takes All A June 13 article accurately notes the growing need for Jewish chaplains in California and the fact that, as Rabbi Lon Moskowitz quite rightly states, there “simply aren’t enough chaplains to fill all the vacancies” (“Demand for Kosher Cuisine Swells Ranks of Jewish Prison Chaplains”). Indeed the need is even greater than…

  Jun 12, 2008 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  Seeing the Obvious

  The United States Senate acted last week with rare irony, verging on self-parody, when it abandoned efforts to pass a long-awaited, urgently needed measure on global warming. The legislators’ inaction was timed exquisitely, if unintentionally, to coincide with the latest wave of record-setting storms descending on us these days. While the senators were dithering over…

  Jun 12, 2008 | 3 min read
• 
  Opinion

  Remember What Bobby Kennedy Died For

  Several years ago, I had the unique blessing of sitting on the pulpit of the Ebenezer Baptist Church on Martin Luther King Day. For some reason, I wound up sitting next to Kerry Kennedy Cuomo, the daughter of the late Senator Robert Kennedy, and had the opportunity to exchange a few pleasantries with her. As…

  By Jeffrey K. Salkin Jun 5, 2008 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Proudly Israeli, Even With a Second Passport

  One of the less talked-about aspects of Ehud Olmert’s envelopes-filled-with-dollars affair is the unsavory picture it presents of Israel-Diaspora relations. Here is the sycophantic Diaspora shnorer sucking up to his Israeli hero, buying a piece of Zionist glory by slipping him money. And here is the Israeli politician, turning with a mixture of disdain and…

  By Yossi Alpher Jun 5, 2008 | 3 min read