Opinion

• Opinion

  The Second Front

  The sudden escalation on Israel’s northern front this week added a disturbing complication to the three-week-old crisis in Gaza, but it also served, in the curious way of the Middle East, as a clarifying development. It was a reminder that there is, in the final analysis, no such thing as unilateral action. One may act…

  By Guest Author

  3 min read
• Opinion

  Pushing Israel’s Right To Exist Is The Wrong Strategy

  Neither Israel nor the United States needs an “Israel’s right to exist” certificate from Hamas in order to have dealings with that movement. To insist on this precondition for contact not only places an unnecessary obstacle on the road to dealing with the Hamas-led government in the Palestinian Authority. It also sends a subtle and…

  By Yossi Alpher Jul 14, 2006 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  When No One Believes in Peace

  It’s the juxtapositions that do it, every time. They beguile, they irritate, they disconcert, they seduce and confuse and fascinate without end. The evening sea breeze reaches the patio off the beach in southern Jaffa. On the beach, a scattering of families, the children mostly young. Arabs; that’s mostly who live in this part of…

  By Leonard Fein Jul 7, 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 I have the answer to Jon Stewart’s toughest question about Israel

  

• Nora Berman ‘Eddington’ is full of conspiracy theories but it’s not about Jews. Or is it?

  

• Dan Perry Recognizing a Palestinian state is a great way to doom Palestinians

  

• Emily Tamkin Is starvation in Gaza really Israel’s fault? The facts are clear

  

The Latest

• Opinion

  Jewish Cheers for Deutschland

  Germany’s quest to become soccer world champion ended Tuesday with a last-minute loss to Italy, but the host country of the World Cup has won nonetheless. During the past month, the Germans presented a new image to the world: easy-going, tolerant, open-minded and funny. Germans seemed at ease with themselves and with the rest of…

  By Eric Frey Jul 7, 2006 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Thunder in Gaza

  It’s hard not to notice the huge imbalance between Israel’s large-scale actions in Gaza in the past two weeks — bombing bridges, government offices and a university; leaving half the population without power; rounding up elected officials — and the ostensible goal of the operation, rescuing a single hostage. The actions have won Israel growing…

  By Guest Author Jul 7, 2006 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Choosing Life, and Change

  The Rabbinical Council of America, the leading body of Modern Orthodox rabbis, took a bold step last week with the issuance of a legal ruling that categorically bans smoking as a violation of the Torah. The council’s boldness is not in accepting four decades of mounting medical evidence, but in letting the findings of modern…

  By Guest Author Jul 7, 2006 | 3 min read
• Letters

  July 7, 2006

  Be Proud of Wise Men’s Modernizing Influences Opinion columnist David Klinghoffer argues that Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud and Baruch Spinoza are “the individuals whose thoughts form the top three most lamentable cultural influences in modern times” (“Three Wise Men’s Unholy Influence,” June 30). We Jews, however, should be proud of Freud for his gift of…

  By Guest Author Jul 7, 2006 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Calls for Respect Don’t Pay Non-Orthodox Rabbis’ Bills

  Why do so many of us rabbis seem so invested in whether Israeli President Moshe Katsav addresses Reform and Conservative rabbis by their title? So what if he insists on not giving due recognition to the Reform movement’s Rabbi Eric Yoffie. And so what if he then turns around and assures Rabbi Jerry Epstein that…

  By Andrew Sacks Jul 7, 2006 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Confront Ignorance of Diaspora Movements

  It is stunning how little some of Israel’s leaders know about Diaspora Jewry in general, and about American Jewry in particular. Almost six decades after the establishment of the Jewish state, many of Israel’s senior politicians have had little contact with Diaspora Jews, and they know virtually nothing about the grassroots religious movements that are…

  By Eric Yoffie Jul 7, 2006 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Preserve the Shards of the Shattered Glass Ceiling

  Last week, 34 years after becoming the first woman ever ordained by a rabbinical seminary, Sally Priesand retired. Throughout her career, Priesand’s achievements have carried both personal and symbolic weight — and so, too, with her retirement. Since her ordination in 1972, Priesand and the more than 800 other women who have followed her into…

  By Karla Goldman Jul 7, 2006 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Representative… of Big Industry

  Not all the famous Roosevelts who graced the American political scene were Democrats. One of them, Theodore Roosevelt, was a Republican. He was a great enough president to merit immortalization, alongside George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln, on the monumental sculpture masterpiece at Mount Rushmore. We mention T.R. now because his views on the…

  By Gus Tyler Jun 30, 2006 | 2 min read