Opinion

• 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…

  3 min read
• Opinion

  Getting Our Learn On

  Time out: With just weeks to go before the fateful election, which will at last put an (upside down?) exclamation point to the end of a campaign that has tested our capacity for sheer endurance, it is time (and then some) for a brief recess. Two catalogs arrived in the mail last week — one…

  By Leonard Fein Sep 24, 2004 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Security and Sanctuary

  It has now been three years since the September 11 terrorist attacks. For us, as leaders of a Jewish agency that has served refugees and immigrants for 123 years, these have been very trying times. Clearly, we recognize the enormity of the attacks on that horrible day, as well as the ongoing danger to the…

  By Jerome Teller and Leonard Glickman Sep 24, 2004 | 3 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

  Shelter From the Storms

  The festival of Sukkot, which begins Wednesday night, September 29, is known for the custom among observant Jews of building sukkahs, or booths, in their backyards and on their rooftops. The booths, open to the sky and the elements, are meant to symbolize the fragile, transient quality of the Hebrews’ journey through the wilderness on…

  Sep 24, 2004 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Overcoming Israel’s Separation Anxiety

  As the year 5765 opens, for Israel the writing is on the wall. The country’s morale is being undermined; its resources are eaten up in a fruitless struggle. Since the beginning of the second Palestinian uprising four years ago, Israel’s economic position has deteriorated in comparison with other developed countries, and even compared with some…

  By Martin van Creveld Sep 24, 2004 | 5 min read
• Letters

  September 24, 2004

  In Bush We Trust Columnist Leonard Fein finds it difficult to understand why 46% of voters “imagine that Bush is more trustworthy than Kerry regarding Supreme Court nominations” (“Heads I Win, Tails You Lose,” September 17). As a member of that 46%, let me explain. A president’s Supreme Court nominations are more likely to be…

  Sep 24, 2004 | 2 min read
• Letters

  September 17, 2004

  ‘Madness’ Didn’t Drive The Butchers of Beslan The shocking outcome of the hostage taking at Beslan was described appropriately in your editorial, “The Madness of Beslan” (September 10), as depraved and horrifying. But calling it “madness” serves only to confuse a moral issue with a medical one: madness or psychosis. It is crucial to understand…

  Sep 17, 2004 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  Heads I Win, Tails You Lose

  In a debate the other night at the annual meeting of Cleveland’s Jewish Community Relations Council, Jeff Jacoby, The Boston Globe’s well-spoken conservative columnist, remarked that “Since 9/11, there’s been no 9/11.” That, he argued, is evidence that President Bush is doing a good job in defending the nation against terrorism and deserves our support…

  By Leonard Fein Sep 17, 2004 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  A Place for Politics in the Pulpit

  I used to be one of those conservatives who bemoan political sermons from the pulpit. This was some years ago — starting when I was in high school and the rabbi at our Reform temple would spend his precious half hour after the High Holy Days fund-raising appeal browbeating the congregation about the perils of…

  By David Klinghoffer Sep 17, 2004 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Mortgaging Our Future

  While the eyes of the nation were riveted last week on the news that American combat deaths in Iraq had passed the 1,000 mark, a far more frightening statistic was released with far less fanfare. The federal budget deficit hit a record $422 billion for the first nine months of 2004, according to the nonpartisan…

  Sep 17, 2004 | 5 min read
• Letters

  September 10, 2004

  Dumbing Down Identity I was taken by Bethamie Horowitz’s August 27 opinion column (“The Dumbing Down of Communal Identity”). It has always seemed obvious to me that the one key aspect of Jewish identity has to be its meaning, as assessed individually. If I am Jewish because to me Judaism teaches religious truths about the…

  Sep 10, 2004 | 5 min read