Opinion

• Opinion

  Invite the Extended Jewish Family For Rosh Hashanah

  This is the time of year when many of us in the Jewish world take stock of ourselves as individuals by assessing our accomplishments, reflecting upon our shortcomings and determining how to lead a more balanced, productive and purposeful life in the coming year. It is also a time when we contemplate where we stand…

  By Lynn Schusterman

  3 min read
• Opinion

  Field of Dreams, Now Just Another Field

  Forty years ago, Sandy Koufax took a day off from his job because it was Yom Kippur. And because it fell on a day he was supposed to pitch in the World Series, he was elevated once and forever into icon status in the Jewish community. But I believe that the gesture is now more…

  By Gerald Eskenazi Oct 7, 2005 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Systematic Acts Of Kindness

  Perhaps the most moving prayer of the High Holiday services is the Unetaneh Tokef, the prayer in which we recite that on Rosh Hashanah it is inscribed and on Yom Kippur sealed “who shall live and who shall die, who in the fullness of time and who before his time,” who by water and who…

  By Leonard Fein Oct 7, 2005 | 4 min read

Columnists View All

• Jay Michaelson What can really be done to prevent antisemitic attacks like Bondi Beach?

  

• Rob Eshman American Jews can’t agree about anything — except Iran

  

• Nora Berman Did crypto-Jews invent the modern tarot deck?

  

• Dan Perry Trump’s new Gaza plan marks a radical break from Israeli policy — can it succeed?

  

• Emily Tamkin Is Mamdani bad or good for Jews? Here’s how to tell

  

The Latest

• Letters

  October 7, 2005

  Torah Values Remain Mandell Ganchrow and his supporters need not be concerned that Yeshiva University is any less committed to the values of Torah u-Madda than it has been in the past (“Yeshiva University Catching Flak For Dropping Old Hebrew Slogan,” September 30). On the contrary, the Center for the Jewish Future was established by…

  Oct 7, 2005 | 5 min read
• Opinion

  A Great Civil War

  Last week, almost exactly 80 years after John Scopes went on trial in Tennessee for teaching Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution in a schoolroom, a federal court in central Pennsylvania convened to revisit the same question: whether America wants its schoolchildren to learn modern science. The terms of the dispute have changed remarkably little in…

  Oct 7, 2005 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  A Windfall Of a Hurricane

  The staggering incompetence of this administration, which would not be quite so damaging were it not coupled with its wrongheadedness, has at last begun to register with the American people. The ratings of the president on a whole variety of measures, including assessment of how well he is performing and his basic trustworthiness, have tumbled;…

  By Leonard Fein Sep 30, 2005 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Who By Fire, Who By Water

  This day is the birthday of the world; this day places all the creatures of the world in judgment. The day is Rosh Hashanah, the New Year on the traditional Jewish calendar, which begins this coming Monday evening. The words — “This day is the birthday of the world” — will be recited at the…

  Sep 30, 2005 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Sharon’s Mission

  It might be none of our business, technically speaking, how Ariel Sharon chooses to spend what’s left of his political career. He’s shown himself over the years to be a master of his country’s political system; he can probably figure out without our help how to maneuver his way through the unrest in his Likud…

  Sep 30, 2005 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  Prisons Are Creating Terrorists In Our Midst

  American prisons have become prime recruiting grounds for incubating prospective terrorists. Radical Islamic inmates have established their own system of indoctrination and recruitment under the cover of religious practice, a phenomenon known as “prison Islam.” Inmates who practice prison Islam generally adopt Muslim names and establish a cohesive social group of fellow Muslim prisoners who…

  By Yehudit Barsky Sep 30, 2005 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  When Kabul Came to Canada, and the Rabbis Fought To Make Shariah the Law of the Land

  So busy have we been worrying that women in Iraq and Afghanistan are losing ground to officially sanctioned Shariah courts with power to control much of what matters in their lives — marriage, divorce, support, inheritance — that we hardly noticed that the ground under as many as 150,000 Muslim women in Canada has been…

  By Kathleen Peratis Sep 30, 2005 | 4 min read
• Letters

  September 30, 2005

  Anti-Israel Problems At U.N. Unimproved Perspective and context are needed to fully assess Israel’s stature in the United Nations system. A September 16 editorial shortchanges both by taking an unwarranted swipe at our television ad on the U.N. and Israel (“UNimproved”). The nuanced ad was aimed primarily at the unique gathering of more than 170…

  Sep 30, 2005 | 6 min read