Opinion

• Opinion

  The Poor Among Us

  The numbers have finally started to come in, and it turns out that much of what we thought we knew about Jewish wealth and poverty is wrong. Several new demographic studies, reported on Page 1 by Nathaniel Popper, indicate that Jews are not the affluent subset within the American population that they are commonly thought…

  3 min read
• Opinion

  Israel’s Window

  There was an air of tedious familiarity in the latest United Nations debate on Israel. Like so many times before, Palestinian provocation led to Israeli military action, prompting the Palestinians to convene the Security Council, which obligingly took up a condemnation of Israel, which was vetoed by the United States. After the charade was done,…

  Oct 8, 2004 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  When Victory Is No Victory at All

  It is typical of the prolonged, ambiguous war between Israel and the Palestinians that no one can really say who prevails at a certain point in time. To some strategists, the important issue is who appears to be winning. “Let us project victory,” was the sound advice given once by Brigadier General Eival Gilady, former…

  By Ofer Shelah Oct 8, 2004 | 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 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

  Helping Afghans Fight for Themselves

  Afghanistan, already a major front in the war on terrorism, now has also become an important front in the American presidential campaign. Senator John Kerry has charged that the Bush administration made a huge mistake in the war against terrorism by diverting military forces from Afghanistan to Iraq. “Iraq is not even the center of…

  By James Phillips Oct 8, 2004 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Among the Villagers of Le Chambon

  As the Holocaust loomed, a few Jews made their way to the area of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon in the mountains of south-central France, 350 miles south of Paris. And the peasants and villagers took in the Jews who came. And the Jews kept coming. And the people kept taking them in. In this one speck of…

  By Pierre Sauvage Oct 8, 2004 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  A Settler’s Call For National Unity

  As the rabbi of one of the largest settlements in Judea, the municipality of Efrat, I identify closely with the settler community. I believe that when the history of this period is written, the various settlements of Judea and Samaria — peopled in the main by very idealistic, Zionistic and non-materialistic Jews — will be…

  By Shlomo Riskin Oct 1, 2004 | 3 min read
• Letters

  October 1, 2004

  Key to Social Security Is Reforming Program It is odd that the Forward has chosen to at long last address the issue of the red ink that is a daunting part of our future, given the fact that I cannot recall another instance in which the editors objected to any spending proposals put forward heretofore…

  Oct 1, 2004 | 5 min read
• Opinion

  Badgering Honor

  Such a fuss! The Republicans set out to rob John Kerry of his heroism, and it appears that in the public mind, they have succeeded. Now, when we read of the senator’s Vietnam heroism, or lack thereof, it is usually juxtaposed against President Bush’s service, or failure to serve, in the National Guard. The score?…

  By Kathleen Peratis Oct 1, 2004 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  A Muse for Philip Roth

  Most of the speculation about how American Jews will vote in November has been about the Bush-Kerry contest, without much consideration as to the issues that are motivating American Jews one way or another. With only a month until the elections, the findings from two new studies — the Annual Survey of American Jewish Opinion,…

  By Bethamie Horowitz Oct 1, 2004 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  A Failure of Moral Vision

  The movement toward divestment from Israel by mainline Protestant churches — first the Presbyterians and now, perhaps, the Anglicans — is an alarming measure of how badly Israel’s reputation in the West has been damaged in the last four years. The uneven warfare of the intifada, the spreading global specter of Muslim rage and the…

  Oct 1, 2004 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  The Miracle of Return

  More than any other holiday, the Day of Atonement is a marker of American Jews’ devotion to their heritage and traditions in the face of the assimilatory pull of the broader culture. Other holidays with a mass following, such as Passover and Hanukkah, are joyous occasions that combine family celebration with readily accessible messages of…

  Oct 1, 2004 | 2 min read