Opinion

• Opinion

  He Who Could Command Legions of the Faithful

  It often occurred to me when Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson was alive, that he was the one person, aside from the Israeli prime minister and the Israeli military’s chief of staff, who commanded a Jewish army. Who else in Jewish life could instruct a young man or a young couple to go to a specific…

  By Joseph Telushkin

  4 min read
• Letters

  June 23, 2006

  Coalition With Latinos Is in Communal Interest Opinion writer Stephen Steinlight erroneously portrays the comprehensive immigration reform adopted by the Senate as a threat to Jews and contrary to Jewish values (“Open Borders Threaten Jewish Clout,” June 16). American Jews, despite being a small minority, have always exercised their democratic rights through the political process…

  Jun 23, 2006 | 5 min read
• Opinion

  Time To Hang Up My Track (II) Shoes

  Israelis and Palestinians have been conducting informal talks about resolving their conflict for several decades now. The first such contacts between Israeli intellectuals and Palestine Liberation Organization stalwarts took place some 30 years ago. These meetings picked up steam in the late 1980s, after the PLO officially accepted the principle of a two-state solution. Since…

  By Yossi Alpher Jun 16, 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

  A Kosher Storm

  It seems the Forward has kicked up quite a storm with our May 26 report from Postville, Iowa, describing working conditions at AgriProcessors, the world’s largest kosher meatpacking plant. Our Letters page this week and last carries a sampling of the response we’ve gotten from readers across the country, most of them wondering how a…

  Jun 16, 2006 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Homeland Insecurity

  There isn’t much left to say that hasn’t already been said about the Bush administration’s nonsensical decision to cut nearly one-third of its federal counter-terrorism assistance to local governments, and then to take what’s left and redistribute it from the places where it’s most needed (New York and Washington, down 40% each) to places that…

  Jun 16, 2006 | < 1 min read
• Opinion

  Open Borders Threaten Jewish Clout

  In passing President Bush’s Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act last month, a bipartisan Senate coalition has shown itself to be suffering from the dubious, irresponsible mindset articulated in Yiddish as “Sie machen sich nicht wissentig” and by Thomas Aquinas as “Ignorantia Affectata”: willfully making themselves unknowing while feigning ignorance about inconvenient facts. A majority of Senate…

  By Stephen Steinlight Jun 16, 2006 | 5 min read
• Opinion

  Push for a Principled Migration Policy

  More than 350 years ago, New Amsterdam Governor Peter Stuyvesant welcomed the first 23 Jewish immigrants with open hostility and threats of deportation. In contrast, President George Washington, while addressing the Rhode Island Jewish community, offered full membership in American society for any newcomer who embraced American constitutional principles. This tension in immigration policy has…

  By Gideon Aronoff Jun 16, 2006 | 5 min read
• Letters

  June 16, 2006

  Investigate Abuses at Iowa Slaughterhouse A May 26 article on AgriProcessors and a subsequent rebuttal in the Jewish Press by lawyer Nathan Lewin make only one thing clear: A full, fair and unbiased investigation of the working conditions at the Postville, Iowa, plant is needed — and it is needed now (“In Iowa Meat Plant,…

  Jun 16, 2006 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Fighting Antisemitism With Theology

  During the Second Vatican Council discussions in Rome in the 1960s, Jewish leaders wanted the Catholic Church to make statements denouncing antisemitism, apologizing for the church’s role in the Holocaust and recognizing the State of Israel. The Catholics, however, were most interested in discussing God and Scripture. Jews talked politics, while Catholics talked theology. Eventually…

  By Eugene Korn Jun 9, 2006 | 3 min read
• Letters

  June 9

  The Pope Speaks, and The Critics Pounce Your June 2 article “At Auschwitz, Ire at What Pope Didn’t Say” reported on the criticisms leveled by some in the Jewish community at Pope Benedict XVI’s speech at Auschwitz. It is worth noting, however, that several days later, in his General Audience in Rome, Pope Benedict delivered…

  Jun 9, 2006 | 5 min read
• Opinion

  Food Fight

  With each passing day, the heat seemed to be rising in the run-up to this fall’s midterm election. Every hot-button issue on the public agenda, from gay marriage to the estate tax, seems to offer another opportunity for one side or the other — mostly the other, if you ask us — to reject compromise…

  By Gus Tyler Jun 9, 2006 | 2 min read