Opinion

• Letters

  Letters

  Mistreating Animals Isn’t Kosher Either I applaud Conservative rabbis for creating a Heckscher Tzedek, or ethically based certification for kosher food, that sets humane labor standards (“Rabbis Move Ahead With New Certification Plan,” May 18). I am disappointed, however, that this certification does not include standards for humane treatment of animals. “Kosher” actually means “fit”…

  4 min read
• Opinion

  6 Days Plus 40 Years

  Forty, the Talmud teaches, is the age for understanding. Twenty is an age for hot-blooded quest, and 30 is the age of force and power. By 50, we are expected to be imparting and accepting wise counsel. Forty is the turning point: the age of understanding, the time, as it were, for the light to…

  Jun 1, 2007 | 5 min read
• Opinion

  Top Court Splits Five vs. Four Again

  In a decision on wage discrimination, the U.S. Supreme Court divided five to four along predictable lines. There are five conservatives and four liberals. The case involves a woman who is a supervisor at a Goodyear tire plant in Gadsden, Alabama. She is the sole female supervisor. She was paid less than the other supervisors,…

  By Gus Tyler May 31, 2007 | 2 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 There’s a shocking new report on civilian deaths in Gaza. If only it were accurate.

  

• Nora Berman Is Netflix’s new show the most Jewish cartoon ever?

  

• Dan Perry Israel’s new gift to the far right could help end the Gaza war

  

• Emily Tamkin Entering motherhood — and an obsession with the works of an Italian Jewish literary hero

  

The Latest

• Opinion

  Feeding Vegetables Into Auto Fuel

  The exhaust from autos fueled by gasoline is one of the most potent air polluters in the nation. In many parts of the country, especially where agricultural products are at hand, vegetables have been displacing gasoline as fuel. But, lo and behold, it now appears that a bio-diesel plant will soon be in operation in…

  By Gus Tyler May 29, 2007 | < 1 min read
• Opinion

  The American Stew

  It was once very popular in intellectual circles to refer to the United States as a great “melting pot.” Over the centuries and up to the present, however, our country has been more a “stew” than a “melting pot.” In a stew, each of the ingredients is affected by the other ingredients in the pot,…

  By Gus Tyler May 29, 2007 | < 1 min read
• Opinion

  A Backward Glance Into The Future

  Iraq is the oldest civilization on earth. It has been blessed and cursed by the presence of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers and their tributaries. Regularly, these rivers would overflow their banks and leave behind a rich mud for successful agriculture. It attracted people who were nomadic tribes and now found a place to settle…

  By Gus Tyler May 29, 2007 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  Minimum Wage Hike Makes History

  For the last ten years there was no increase in the federal minimum age. When the Republicans took control of Congress in President Clinton’s second year in office they turned their back on any minimum-wage increase. Ironically, the Congress of the United States voted to increase its own stipend in line with the rise in…

  By Gus Tyler May 26, 2007 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  A Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing

  Perhaps Paul Wolfowitz deserved to get pushed out of the World Bank for helping his girlfriend get a new job and a hefty pay raise. At the same time, though, his critics should at least have the decency to admit that the latest scandal disproves the popular (and unfair) claim that Wolfowitz’s main goal in…

  May 25, 2007 | 3 min read
• Letters

  May 25, 2007

  Israel’s Peace Efforts Were Not Questioned A May 18 article presents a woefully inaccurate account of my remarks, and those of Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, with respect to our participation in public forums with Israeli government officials (“Foxman, Wiesel Upbraid Israel for Pace of Peace Effort”). I, for one, did not at any point upbraid…

  May 25, 2007 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Continuity Beyond Communal Walls

  With all the critique leveled at Jewish institutions these days, it’s worth recalling that congregations and Jewish community centers are extraordinarily successful in appealing to a particular segment of American Jews. Of those who are in-married with school-age children, well over 80% are affiliated with a Jewish institution, generally a synagogue or JCC. Once parents…

  By Steven M. Cohen May 25, 2007 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  In Search of the Meaning of Life

  I love being an astronomer, especially at times like the midnight of Shavuot when, according to mystical tradition, people who look skyward are rewarded with a taste of the revelation that occurred at Sinai. The kabbalists of 16th-century Safed innovated the concept of all-night Torah study on Shavuot, because on this night of revelation God…

  By Howard Smith May 25, 2007 | 3 min read