Opinion

• Opinion

  When Emotion Trumps Reason

  Over and over again this year, I’ve heard people say that although they’ve voted solidly Democratic in the past, they now lean Republican because of their concerns about Israel and the Middle East. I located a few warm bodies willing to explain the feelings that have compelled them to switch. My exploratory interviews found that…

  By Bethamie Horowitz

  3 min read
• Letters

  October 29, 2004

  Without ‘Peoplehood,’ Judaism Is Meaningless When I began my career as a rabbi some 25 years ago, I was told by a senior colleague to “be prepared for everything and be surprised about nothing.” Over the course of the years, I have generally followed this sage advice, and there is very little that can shock…

  Oct 29, 2004 | 5 min read
• Opinion

  Voting and Change

  It may or may not be true that this election is the most important one in living memory, as some of its more heated partisans have taken to declaring. What’s beyond doubt is that it has been the most passionate — and the nastiest. The divisions in our body politic have deepened to the point…

  Oct 29, 2004 | 2 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 Americans keep getting killed in the West Bank. Here’s how the US could fight that awful trend

  

• Nora Berman First Camp Auschwitz, now Alligator Alcatraz — why the right is obsessed with commodifying brutality

  

• Dan Perry What exactly is going on between Israel and Syria — and is the prospect of peace dead?

  

• Emily Tamkin Zohran Mamdani’s victory proves it: The ‘gotcha’ mode of fighting antisemitism has to go

  

The Latest

• Opinion

  Out of Gaza

  After all the buildup, it’s tempting to view the Knesset vote approving Prime Minister Sharon’s Gaza-West Bank disengagement plan this week as an anti-climax. What more can be said of a political idea that already has been discussed half to death and isn’t even close to being implemented? For starters, there is the passage of…

  Oct 29, 2004 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  A Deficit in Fiscal Sanity

  A generation from now, will our children and grandchildren have affordable health care? Will they have good schools? How high will their taxes be? A lot is riding on the policies our government enacts today. Yet in the presidential campaigns, the tough choices are largely obscured in heated, sometimes misleading rhetoric. If you are searching…

  By Iris Lav Oct 29, 2004 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  A People Divided By Minority Rule

  In both Israel and America, minorities in the Jewish world are attempting to impose their will on the majority. The outcome of these efforts will do much to determine the future course of Jewish politics. In Israel, the settler movement is campaigning to block the acceptance of Prime Minister Sharon’s disengagement plan from Gaza. That…

  By Eric Yoffie Oct 29, 2004 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  The Case for Bush: Safety in Freedom

  Every member of an ethnic, racial or religious minority in the United States understands the power and value of freedom and democracy. Americans understand that the right to vote ensures the equality of every person; democracy is a powerful force that commands respect for the rights of others and insists on the application of the…

  By Kenneth Bialkin Oct 22, 2004 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  The Case for Kerry: Strength Through Respect

  I am a Washington lawyer who moved to Israel 20 years ago and has since lived in Jerusalem roughly half of the year. As you might well guess, I care deeply about the security of Israel. I am a member of Likud, the party of Prime Minister Sharon. Like a majority of Likud and unlike…

  By Bruce Terris Oct 22, 2004 | 5 min read
• Letters

  October 22, 2004

  Outreach to Emigrés I read with great interest the first installment of the Forward’s series on Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union (“After 25 Years, Soviet Emigrés Still Strangers,” October 15). I look forward to reading the final two articles in this series. I hope that they strike a more balanced picture of the…

  Oct 22, 2004 | 6 min read
• Opinion

  Bad for the U.S., Bad for Israel

  It doesn’t really matter, and surely comes as no surprise, that substantial majorities in England, France, South Korea, Canada, Mexico, Japan, Spain and Australia think the war in Iraq is a mistake and that they prefer John Kerry to George Bush. In Mexico, 83% of the respondents to a rather remarkable poll say that our…

  By Leonard Fein Oct 22, 2004 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  No Time for Dithering

  American Jews have a long tradition, going back to the early days of the Republic, of laying aside their differences in times of crisis and speaking out with one voice to defend their brethren in other lands. That tradition has become an 11th commandment in the half-century since the birth of the sovereign State of…

  Oct 22, 2004 | 3 min read