Opinion

• 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…

  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
• Opinion

  A Seed Is Planted in the Land of Israel

  Recently, my youngest daughter and her boyfriend of several years stood in the doorway of my study and announced their engagement. “Abba,” said my 19 year old, hardly able to contain herself, “we decided on a date.” Tehila works in the children’s ward at Tel Hashomer Hospital. She’s there fulfilling her National Service, which she…

  By Moshe Dann Apr 21, 2006 | 4 min read

Columnists View All

• Alyssa Katz Class assignment: Get to know your murdered Jewish neighbors

  

• Rob Eshman Trump is backed into a corner on Iran. Get ready for him to start blaming Jews

  

• Dan Perry How Israel became a country where teenagers murder each other in cold blood

  

• Emily Tamkin American Jews have a Hasan Piker problem. Solving it is going to hurt

  

• Jay Michaelson Epstein and Iran are an antisemitism mega-crisis. Here’s what Jewish organizations should do about it. 

  

The Latest

• 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 Apr 21, 2006 | 3 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
• 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
• Opinion

  The Passion of the Pension

  The second biggest surprise of Israel’s election last week — after the evaporation of the Greater Israel ideology — was the meteoric appearance of the Pensioners Party. As most of the world knows by now, the party had surfaced as a fringe protest group, all but invisible in voter surveys, but it somehow caught an…

  Apr 7, 2006 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Exodus

  Wednesday evening, April 12, Jews all around the world will sit down together to celebrate the Seder, the annual re-enactment of their ancestors’ Exodus from Egypt. If the past is any guide, millions upon millions will gather around the table with friends and family to tell stories, sing songs, struggle with bits of Hebrew text…

  Apr 7, 2006 | < 1 min read
• Opinion

  When Those Who Immigrate Don’t Assimilate

  The current political row on Capitol Hill and in California about immigration policy notwithstanding, Europeans look with admiration and envy at American society’s ability to absorb people from all over the world. And though they might be loath to concede the point to Americans, a fair number of Europeans would admit that Europe’s poor record…

  By Eric Frey Apr 7, 2006 | 4 min read