Opinion

• Opinion

  Even the Scary and the Weird Have Rights

  This is not the column I expected to write this week. I expected to cluck-cluck about the shameful, officially sanctioned kidnapping of the more than 450 children from the compound of the Fundamentalist LDS church in El Dorado, Texas, and to compare the deprivation of their rights to Guantanamo Bay. I expected to decry the…

  By Kathleen Peratis

  4 min read
• Opinion

  Peace Is Worth the Risk Of Withdrawing From the Golan

  About this time last year, the Israeli media was buzzing with gloomy predictions of an impending war with Syria. Come summer, they said, the northern front would be ablaze. That, of course, didn’t come to pass. Nowadays, the buzz is all about the awful possibility that Israel will give up the Golan Heights in return…

  By Martin van Creveld May 29, 2008 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  A Few Old Jews

  “The fate of the world for the next four years,” a Florida rabbi said to The New York Times the other day. “It’s all going to boil down to a few old Jews in Century Village.” The rabbi was referring to the pitched battle for Jewish voter support that appears to be looming as the…

  May 29, 2008 | 3 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 It’s a classic trick of liars and crooks — and it’s shaping Israel’s response to war and disaster

  

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

  

The Latest

• Opinion

  Avoid Repeat of Durban Hate-Fest By Convening an Alternate Summit

  The World Conference Against Racism held in Durban, South Africa, in 2001 was one of the most hate-filled, antisemitic, anti-Israel gatherings in recent memory. A follow-up conference has now been scheduled for April 2009 in Geneva. Though officially known as the Durban Review Conference, it’s been dubbed “Durban II,” and for good reason — it…

  By Bernie Farber May 29, 2008 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  A Few Old Jews II

  Israel hit the world’s front pages in an unaccustomed role last week. For a change, the news wasn’t about Israel’s conflicts with its neighbors but rather its intimate bonds with the Jews of the Diaspora. According to current reports, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is under furious pressure to quit his job because of his financial…

  May 29, 2008 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  Our Hagee Problem Has Yet To Be Addressed

  By now, Pastor John Hagee has been revealed as a theological boor and John McCain has deftly, if belatedly, stepped away from the Hagee embrace he had earlier so assiduously sought and so gratefully welcomed. “Boor” is a rough word, I know. So let Hagee speak for himself: “It was the disobedience and rebellion of…

  By Leonard Fein May 29, 2008 | 4 min read
• Letters

  June 6, 2008

  What Zechariah Foresaw Yehezkel Dror’s May 23 opinion article was spot on target (“When Survival of the Jewish People Is at Stake, There’s No Place for Morals”). He correctly maintains that “if the threat is sufficiently grave, the use of weapons of mass destruction by Israel would be justified if likely to be necessary for…

  May 29, 2008 | 4 min read
• 
  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 May 22, 2008 | 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
• 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