Opinion

• Opinion

  Read Boston Study on Intermarriage With Caution

  The recently released 2005 Boston Community Study reported some seemingly startling findings with potentially powerful implications for the future of American Jews. It reported that 60% of children in intermarried homes are being raised as Jews: “The majority of intermarried households with children are raising those children as Jews. Doing so is near-universal among Jewish…

  By Jack Ukeles, and Ron Miller, and Steven M. Cohen

  4 min read
• Opinion

  There’s Little Hope for Peace if Occupation Is a Proper Noun

  I hate the Occupation and I hate the occupation. I hate them both equally. I long for a time when it will end, but I fear the second will end because of the tyranny of the first. Let me explain. I hate the Occupation, the invented brutal and apartheid-like regime whereby Jewish Israelis systematically mistreat…

  By David Twersky Dec 8, 2006 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  The Questions That Might Otherwise Be Lost

  Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav: “As your answers have become my questions, may my questions become your answers.” The know-nothings and the know-everythings are at it again. The know-nothings, as ever, mock Darwin, scorn stem-cell research, affirm abstinence, blame science for what they see as a collapse of American values and an imminent threat to the…

  By Leonard Fein Dec 8, 2006 | 4 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

• Letters

  December 8, 2006

  Embrace Ethics Reform Has our communal leadership lost its collective mind (“Jewish Groups To Challenge Ethics Reform,” December 1)? Congressional trips to Israel and worthy community projects do not have to be endangered by ethics reform; they should continue under the basic operations of Congress — not as payoffs for lobbyists whose raison d’etre is…

  Dec 8, 2006 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Dear John

  John Bolton’s resignation as American ambassador to the United Nations is an important and welcome step in the national healing process that began on Election Day, November 7. Bolton’s presence at the U.N. for the past 15 months, despite the Senate’s refusal to confirm him, has been a daily reminder of the Bush administration’s arrogant,…

  Dec 8, 2006 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Says Who?

  Just in time for the premiere of Mel Gibson’s latest movie, another popular culture figure has stepped forward to add his own ugly thoughts about Jews to the public discourse. As we report on this week’s Shmooze page, Don Imus, the irascible radio-and-cable talk-show host, recently complained on-air that he had been barred by his…

  Dec 8, 2006 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  Let Cease-fire Arm Voices of Mideast Moderation

  At last, a flicker of hope on the peace front. The cease-fire, we fervently pray, will hold. A flicker of hope, and a welcome opportunity to reenergize American Jews, particularly those of moderate views, and to engage them more intensively in the search for peace. In recent months I have visited congregations large and small…

  By Eric Yoffie Dec 1, 2006 | 5 min read
• Opinion

  But Bubbe and Zaide Were Hippies

  On a Friday night at my shul, the children gathered to hear the rabbi tell an after-dinner story. His engaging style had them riveted to the tale of a bubbe who teaches her little grandson all about how faith and song magically hid her in the shtetl from the Cossacks. Part of me settled comfortably…

  By Aurora Mendelsohn Dec 1, 2006 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  The Lost Spirit of Christmas Past

  As a young boy growing up in officially Catholic Austria, December was a time to realize what it meant to be Jewish. In the birthplace of “Silent Night,” Christmas was a deeply religious experience from which even non-religious Jews consciously excluded themselves. Christmas shopping was a subdued affair, while advent wreaths and nativity scenes abounded….

  By Eric Frey Dec 1, 2006 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Making Deals

  In our lifetime (mine, anyway), several political eras have been tagged with the word “deal.” There was Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s famous New Deal. Roosevelt’s successor, Harry Truman, liked to refer to his reforms as the Fair Deal. There are some who refer to our current regime as the Raw Deal or perhaps as an Or-deal….

  By Gus Tyler Dec 1, 2006 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  To Those Who Would Count Stones Thrown

  Crunch time approaches, as we have known for years it one day would. The texture of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is about to undergo a seismic shift. Very soon now — in mid-December, it’s said — we will have the report of the Iraq Study Group, co-chaired by former secretary of state…

  By Leonard Fein Dec 1, 2006 | 4 min read