Opinion

• Opinion

  The Kids Are Alright

  Fears of American Jewry disappearing, drifting into a velvet oblivion of assimilation, have given rise to a cottage industry of research, outreach and alarm-ringing in recent years. Most of this activity is aimed at maintaining the loyalty of the next generation of Jews, to save them from vanishing from the fold. It’s a complex job;…

  3 min read
• Opinion

  Let’s Make a Deal

  Of all the cruel ironies in the latest Israeli-Palestinian flare-up around Gaza, perhaps the oddest is the sight of Islamic militants stepping up their bombardment of Sderot and expanding their rockets’ range to reach major Israeli cities — and then accusing Israel of escalating the conflict when it shoots back. Israel’s response to the relentless…

  Mar 6, 2008 | 2 min read
• Letters

  March 14, 2008

  Rabbi Was No Mob Boss Contrary to Arts & Culture writer Allan Nadler’s description in a January 25 article, Rabbi Israel Friedman of Ruzhin was an innovative and charismatic Hasidic leader in Russia and Galicia during the first half of the 19th century (“Righteous Indignation: How Are We To Understand the Alleged Spinka Scandal?”). During…

  Mar 6, 2008 | 3 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

  Why Do We Fawn Over John Hagee?

  Of politics, bedfellows and such: The dustup over evangelical Pastor John Hagee’s endorsement of Senator John McCain would not have attracted the attention it did had it not come in the wake of the Tim Russert-provoked controversy regarding Senator Barack Obama, the pastor of his church and Louis Farrakhan. In the aftermath of the revelation…

  By Leonard Fein Mar 3, 2008 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  What Makes Nader Run?

  When Democrats discuss Ralph Nader’s new presidential bid, the conversation is usually studded with emphatic assertions of what the aging activist surely “must realize” and what he “couldn’t genuinely believe.” It seems as though liberals with memories of the 1960s and of Nader’s glory days as a consumer advocate can’t bring themselves to believe he…

  Feb 28, 2008 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  Nader, Obama and Israel

  Ralph Nader’s imagined list of political unmentionables — the issues that he believes won’t be aired unless he runs — includes one item that might be described as missing from the current campaign debate: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Missing, that is, if “talking about” it means buying into Nader’s view that Israel is the aggressor nation….

  Feb 28, 2008 | < 1 min read
• Opinion

  Discrimination By Any Other Name

  In a speech early last month, Reverend Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury and spiritual leader of the world’s 80 million Anglicans, was just a bit too Muslim-friendly. He spoke of the “inevitability” of some “constructive accommodation” between British law and Sharia. Williams’s use of the terms “accommodation” and “Sharia” in the same sentence freaked…

  By Kathleen Peratis Feb 28, 2008 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Catholics Have a Right To Pray for Us

  Israel prays for gentiles, so the other monotheists, the Catholic Church included, have the right to do the same — and no one should feel offended, as many have by Pope Benedict XVI’s recent revision of the Tridentine Mass. Any other policy toward gentiles would deny their access to the one God whom Israel knows…

  By Jacob Neusner Feb 28, 2008 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  There Is More to the ‘Arab Jews’ Controversy Than Just Identity

  A recent column in these pages by Philologos rejecting the term “Arab Jew” has sparked a spirited e-dialogue among Forward readers and led the columnist to write two follow-up articles (including one in this week’s Arts & Culture section). Philologos’s point of departure was a Reuters dispatch of January 20 that cited remarks made in…

  By Yossi Alpher Feb 28, 2008 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Thinking the Unthinkable

  Israel is in a diplomatic and military jam that keeps getting worse, but has no obvious solution. It is rapidly approaching the demographic tipping point, when Palestinian Arabs outnumber Israeli Jews in the land now under Israeli control. When that happens, Israel will find that it has become a minority-rule state, and it will have…

  Feb 28, 2008 | 2 min read
• Letters

  February 29-March7, 2008

  A Generosity of Spirit Rabbi Irwin Kula’s February 22 opinion article on the Tridentine Mass is a welcome voice of reason on this issue (“Enough Tridentine Mass Hysteria”). As a Catholic I have heard and read many disparaging comments, both within and without the Church, about the petition in the Good Friday prayers calling for…

  Feb 28, 2008 | 2 min read