Opinion

• Opinion

  Engaging the Intermarried

  There is extraordinary news from Boston’s 2005 Jewish Community Study: 60% of its children in intermarried households are being raised as Jews, compared to the national rate of 33%. The significance of the 60% figure cannot be overstated. First, it should end the debate over the effectiveness of outreach. Second, every local Jewish community can…

  By Edmund Case and Kathy Kahn

  4 min read
• Opinion

  In Jerusalem, Fundamentalism on the March

  ‘Good morning, Iran/the loudspeaker calls/How we feared/that this day would come.” So sang Israeli pop star Aviv Geffen eight years ago, reacting to the growing strength of the ultra-Orthodox parties in Israel, and fearing that, demographics being what they are, things would only get worse. Well, they have. Today, Jewish moderates in Israel and America…

  By Jay Michaelson Nov 17, 2006 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  The Two Faces of Bashar Al-Assad

  Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad recently announced his readiness to make peace with Israel, but he also declared his readiness to pursue war. In a recent interview with Spanish newspaper El Pais, Assad expressed his willingness for Syria to return to the negotiating table with Israel but concluded that if a peace agreement could not be…

  By Ileana Ros-Lehtinen Nov 17, 2006 | 3 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

  The General Assembly’s Youth Deficit

  Upon entering this year’s General Assembly of United Jewish Communities in Los Angeles, one is immediately greeted by colorful pictures of young Jews hugging beside the slogan of this year’s gathering, “One People, One Destiny.” The slogan reflects both the G.A.’s focus on the aftermath of Israel’s war with Hezbollah as well as widespread concern…

  By Ariel Beery Nov 17, 2006 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  All Worked Up, About All the Wrong Things

  It is a puzzlement: How can a community so smart and sophisticated as ours so frequently overreact, under-react, be so off course? Three examples: Among the best known and most highly respected historians of our time is Tony Judt, a professor at New York University and author of the lavishly praised, “Postwar: A History of…

  By Leonard Fein Nov 17, 2006 | 4 min read
• Letters

  November 17, 2006

  Borat Is No Mensch, Glod Deserves Better We in the Jewish community shouldn’t be too quick to laud Sacha Baron Cohen, aka, Borat (“Forward 50,” November 10). My husband and I saw the film “Borat,” and while one can’t deny Baron Cohen’s skills as a comic, his talent was overshadowed by the unethical business practices…

  Nov 17, 2006 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  A Surreal Visit

  A visit by Israel’s leader is traditionally a festive time for American Jews. Going back to the days of David Ben-Gurion, such visits are a chance for members of the community to turn out en masse, show their solidarity with the world’s only Jewish state and applaud its elected chief. Topping it off, the prime…

  Nov 17, 2006 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  Time To Talk

  The main item of substance at this week’s Bush-Olmert summit, the Iranian nuclear threat, was hardly more encouraging than the political atmospherics. Both leaders agree that the threat is real. Both know there is no way to contain Iran except by building a solid international front against it. But there the agreement ends. Olmert seems…

  Nov 17, 2006 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  A Hollow Leadership, And a Miracle Squandered

  The annual memorial ceremony for Yitzhak Rabin is the moment when we pause for a while to remember Rabin the man, the leader. And we also take a look at ourselves, at Israeli society, its leadership, the national mood, the state of the peace process, at ourselves as individuals in the face of national events….

  By David Grossman Nov 11, 2006 | 10 min read
• Opinion

  On Campus, a Culture of Conformity

  It is a well-known fact that professors lean to the left. According to a recently released study by the Institute for Jewish & Community Research, professors are more likely to identify as liberals than as conservatives by a ratio of 3-to-1. In the social sciences and humanities the figure is 5-to-1. These findings were not…

  By Gary A. Tobin Nov 11, 2006 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Rescue and Resistance

  Sixty-eight years ago this week, Adolf Hitler unleashed the infamous Kristallnacht pogrom. Savage mobs beat and murdered Jews, smashed their stores and burned down synagogues throughout Germany and Austria. My father, then 25, barely eluded this hurricane of destruction: He was on a boat just down river from Vienna, leading 550 Jewish refugees to safety….

  By Jeremy Ben-Ami Nov 11, 2006 | 3 min read