Opinion

• Letters

  Jan 2, 2009

  Court Didn’t Mandate Hebron House Eviction In your December 19 editorial “Hebron and the Rule of Law,” regarding the evictions of Jews from Hebron’s Beit HaShalom, you write: “In November the court authorized the army to evict the squatters. The troops went in to enforce the law.” That is misleading. The Supreme Court did not…

  4 min read
• Opinion

  Praying With Rev. Warren

  When Barack Obama takes office January 20, he will inherit crises on a scale no president has faced in living memory. America has gotten itself into a very deep hole, not just in finance and the economy but on the battlefields of the Middle East, in the oceans and dirty skies, on factory floors, in…

  Dec 24, 2008 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  A New Low in Turtle Bay

  The threadbare honor of the United Nations has reached a new low with the misbehavior of the General Assembly president, Miguel D’Escoto Brockman of Nicaragua. Ignoring the diplomatic etiquette expected in his post, D’Escoto, a priest and former Sandinista official, repeatedly describes Israeli policies as a “version” of apartheid. He recently urged the U.N. to…

  Dec 24, 2008 | 2 min read

Columnists View All

• Alyssa Katz My summer plans prove it: The Jewish Catskills are alive and kicking

  

• Rob Eshman ‘Remember the Liberty’ has become code for ‘Israel Is Evil’ 

  

• Dan Perry The Iran war ended terribly for the US, and even worse for Israel

  

• Emily Tamkin Outrage over Nicholas Kristof’s op-ed on sexual assault of Palestinians is missing the point

  

• Jay Michaelson You’re wrong, Ken Paxton: Obviously God is nonbinary

  

The Latest

• Opinion

  Other People’s Money

  A friend recalled this scene from decades ago: The president of a small Orthodox synagogue in New York had apparently absconded with about $2 million from the congregation, a huge sum in those days. But since he had not yet been formally charged or arrested, he was free to attend Shabbat services. Which he did….

  Dec 18, 2008 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Tradition and (50 Years of) Change

  Few books have an iconic status specifically for Conservative Jews, but it is fair to say that “Tradition and Change: The Development of Conservative Judaism” is one of them. This year marked the 50th anniversary of the publication of this landmark volume of essays on movement ideology, edited by the late Rabbi Mordecai Waxman. For…

  By Elliot Cosgrove Dec 18, 2008 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  The Clichés of Our Lives

  At a recent bat mitzvah party, as the Village People’s “YMCA” played, my wife remarked to me that it may be time to retire that unique piece of American kitsch. Give it a rest for a decade. After that, if we think it’s still amusing to spell out letters with our arms, fine, bring it…

  By Noam Neusner Dec 18, 2008 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Pursuing Peace Amid Pessimism

  If the emerging Washington consensus is to be believed, then here is the Middle East peace conundrum waiting to greet the new Obama administration: Resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is more than ever a strategic priority for the United States, but it also seems more difficult to achieve now, perhaps even unattainable in the foreseeable future….

  By Daniel Levy Dec 18, 2008 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  If Torture Isn’t News, What Does That Say?

  On December 10, 1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. So just the other day, the declaration’s 60th anniversary was celebrated. It may well have escaped your attention; though people engaged in human rights work marked the occasion, the anniversary flew in, then out, below…

  By Leonard Fein Dec 18, 2008 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Hebron and the Rule of Law

  Israel got a taste recently of what to expect from West Bank settlers in the event of a peace agreement with the Palestinians. On the morning of December 4, some 600 border police staged a surprise raid on a disputed house in Hebron to evict nine Jewish families living there illegally. Removed with the families…

  Dec 11, 2008 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Never Again, Really

  Right there, on the third page of a new report issued by the bi-partisan Genocide Prevention Task Force and co-authored by former secretary of state Madeline Albright and former defense secretary William S. Cohen, is this stunning acknowledgement: The United States government “does not have an established, coherent policy for preventing and responding to genocide…

  Dec 11, 2008 | 2 min read
• Letters

  December 19, 2008

  No Need To Hear Tyrants Pontificate In deciding whether or not to attend the Durban II conference, the new president should take a cue from the Bush administration and spare taxpayers the expense of sending representatives to hear the usual claptrap about racism and discrimination from some of the worst human rights offenders on the…

  Dec 11, 2008 | < 1 min read