Opinion

• Opinion

  How To Laugh at Death, By Art Buchwald

  Art Buchwald is living and dying in a Washington, D.C., hospice. If you don’t know his story, you could be forgiven for thinking this is a very sad time for the 80-year-old Jewish columnist. Just the opposite, Buchwald says. “I am,” he announces, “having the time of my life.” His family and friends, along with…

  By Dov Burt Levy

  3 min read
• Letters

  Letter April 21, 2006

  Note Orthodox Record Of Government Service An April 7 article describes the hundreds of letters that were submitted on behalf of Jack Abramoff to U.S. District Judge Paul Huck, many from prominent rabbinic and lay leaders in the Orthodox community (“‘Dear Judge’: Religion-tinged Letters Praise Good Deeds of Felon Lobbyist”). Assuming that Abramoff is truly…

  Apr 21, 2006 | 5 min read
• Opinion

  Politics By Other Means

  It all sounds so depressingly familiar: We are giving diplomacy a chance, any suggestion that we are preparing for military action is “wild speculation” — but, at the same time, Iran represents a grave threat to world peace and is a haven for terrorism. Wait too long, and it will have nuclear weapons, international inspection…

  By Leonard Fein Apr 21, 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

  Rise Up and Remember

  On Passover eve, April 19, 1943, a group of young Polish Jews, members of socialist and Zionist youth groups, launched an armed uprising against the German troops that were massing to liquidate the surviving residents of the Warsaw Ghetto. It was a mad, hopeless act of desperation and defiance: fewer than 600 teenagers, armed with…

  Apr 21, 2006 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Mad Logic

  This week’s deadly suicide bombing in Tel Aviv is a crime against humanity and a reminder of the threat Israelis face every day. Nothing more should need saying, except that people of good will everywhere share the grief of the stricken. Considered in the context of the week’s other headlines, however, the bombing is much…

  Apr 21, 2006 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  Jewish Education Needs A Copernican Revolution

  Today we live in a world where choice reigns, where mass customization is expected and where learners are increasingly in charge of their own learning. For Jewish education in America, confronting this reality demands nothing less than a radical Copernican-style revolution, one that places the learner — not the provider, the program or even the…

  By Jonathan Woocher Apr 21, 2006 | 4 min read
• Letters

  Letter April 14, 2006

  Word to Music Critics: Just Let Matisyahu Sing The racially focused critiques of Chabad-Lubavitch reggae star Matisyahu lack merit (“Trials of a Hasidic Rapper,” March 24). Matisyahu and his band are attacked for being white. To paraphrase the late Miles Davis, it doesn’t matter if this cat is black, white or polka dot with green…

  Apr 14, 2006 | 5 min read
• Opinion

  This Passover, Peas on Earth

  Until last Wednesday, I had no idea what “legumes” meant. Oh, I knew that legumes were an edible of some sort and not a French rock band (“Les Gumes” or some such). But coming on the word as I did only once a year, during the run-up to Passover, I knew legumes only as a…

  By Leonard Fein Apr 14, 2006 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  The Risks of War

  At least on the face of things, the latest news emerging from Tehran must bring some significant shift in the tone and calculus of American strategic thinking on the Middle East. Former Iranian president Hashemi Rafsanjani announced Tuesday that Iran has succeeded in producing a limited amount of enriched uranium for nuclear fuel. True, it…

  Apr 14, 2006 | 4 min read
• Letters

  Letter April 7, 2006

  Editorial Romanticizes U.S. Support for Israel In a March 24 editorial on John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt’s controversial polemic on the “Israel lobby” (“In Dark Times, Blame the Jews”), the Forward states that “Israel has had the support of successive American administrations in large part because it enjoys the sympathy of much of the American…

  Apr 7, 2006 | 5 min read
• Opinion

  Whoa Unto Us

  Whoa unto us. That’s “whoa,” not woe. We’re in a kind of sucking swamp just now. Think about Hamas, and experience dismay. Think about Washington and Baghdad and experience despair. Think about Iran’s announcement that it now has ballistic missiles with multiple warheads that can be independently targeted, and experience, well, righteous fear. And by…

  By Leonard Fein Apr 7, 2006 | 4 min read