Opinion

• Opinion

  To a Woman With a Big Nose

  My sister Debbie has always been gorgeous — great face, great body. When I happened to find a picture taken 20 years ago, showing us all grouped around our family’s beloved dining room table, I was thrilled at how young and fit we all looked. But I hid it from her for months. The reason…

  By Judy Oppenheimer

  3 min read
• Opinion

  The Raid in Postville

  Makeshift federal courtrooms were set up last week on a rented fairground in Waterloo, Iowa, for the trial, conviction and sentencing of the 389 workers arrested on immigration charges in a May 12 federal raid on the AgriProcessors, Inc. kosher meatpacking plant in Postville, 75 miles away. On May 19, the first day of the…

  May 22, 2008 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Talking With the Enemy

  There’s something almost comical in the timing of announcements last week that Israel had achieved diplomatic breakthroughs with foes on its northern and southern fronts. The word came out during the very week that Republicans were mounting their fiercest attacks yet on liberals who favor negotiating with those same enemies. Once again, Israel’s self-appointed defenders…

  May 22, 2008 | 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 A billionaire Gen Z influencer is reinventing philanthropy — with this South African rabbi’s help

  

• 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

  May 30, 2008

  Problems With Postville Go Beyond Meat Prices Federal agents raid the AgriProcessors plant and all the Forward chooses to focus on a possible shortage of kosher meat (“Raid on Kosher Slaughterhouse Sparks Fears of Meat Shortage,” May 23)? Where is your sense of indignation? Where is your sense of rage? Isn’t the Forward offended by…

  May 22, 2008 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  There Were No Taliban in Bosnia

  The little most Americans know about Bosnia is that it was the scene of murderous orgies and ethnic cleansing during the 1990s. There is far more to the land where I was born, of course, but at least this simplistic view is accurate — which is more than can be said for the revisionist history…

  By Muhamed Sacirbey May 22, 2008 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  A Day in the Life of Sderot

  On Friday evening, before it got dark, Jimmy Kdoshim, a 48-year-old man, was killed by a Qassam rocket at his home in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, while working in his garden. Looking at the pictures of his house that was broadcast on the evening news, I could see that except for the myriad of holes left…

  By Julia Chaitin May 22, 2008 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  The Harbinger of an Inspiring Generation

  If I were in a grade-giving mode, I’d give them collectively, an “S”, for spectacular (followed by an asterisk). The “them” are the 44 applicants for the New Israel Fund Social Justice Fellowship whose applications I have just finished reading. (The selection of the five winners has already been completed. Though I am not on…

  By Leonard Fein May 22, 2008 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  For Once, It’s the Thoughts That Count

  Citizens of Jerusalem were hopping mad in the days leading up to Shimon Peres’s lavish Israeli Presidential Conference, a gala international talkfest held this past week to celebrate Israel’s 60th anniversary. With 3,500 guests coming from 50 countries, including foreign leaders, titans of business and Nobel laureates, streets had been blocked off and security checkpoints…

  By J.J. Goldberg May 15, 2008 | 5 min read
• Opinion

  When Survival of the Jewish People Is at Stake, There’s No Place for Morals

  There is little disagreement that every Jewish leader, organization, community and individual has a duty to help ensure the continuity of the Jewish people. But in a world where the long-term existence of the Jewish state is far from certain, the imperative to exist inevitably gives rise to difficult questions, foremost among them this: When…

  By Yehezkel Dror May 15, 2008 | 5 min read
• 
  Opinion

  Making Iran Into a Jewish Issue Is Fueling an Unhealthy Debate

  When shareholders of the Austrian oil and gas company OMV met in Vienna May 14 for their annual meeting, they were met by a small group of noisy protesters from Stop the Bomb, a mostly Jewish alliance opposed to OMV’s business dealings with Iran. Just 10 days earlier, the alliance held a conference in the…

  By Eric Frey May 15, 2008 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Please, Our Dear American Cousins, Stay Out of Israel’s Business

  The involvement of American businessman Morris Talansky in the latest scandal surrounding Ehud Olmert ought to raise questions that go far beyond what the prime minister did or did not do, and whether he ought to pay the price. Some serious soul-searching is in order about the relationship between American Jewry and Israel. Granted, Talansky…

  By Gideon Levy May 15, 2008 | 3 min read