In the Forward’s opinion section, you’ll find analysis and essays from diverse corners of the Jewish world.
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Opinion
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Opinion
Laboring for Social Welfare Limited by An Open Economy
By speaking out loudly against the rise of economic inequality and the spread of poverty in Israel, newly elected Labor Party leader Amir Peretz has brought about a major shift in the country’s public agenda, away from the security matters that have dominated debate in Israel for so long. Some unspecified anti-poverty measures were supposedly…
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Opinion Left, Right And Center
For about a millisecond, it seemed as if politics in Israel was experiencing a clarity bounce. The Labor Party, once the unchallenged engine of the system but lately suffering from mortis (yet without rigor), a flopping corpse suffering from terminal nostalgia, suddenly had chosen to face forward rather than back. Amir Peretz, its new leader,…
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Opinion Sharon’s Earthquake
Fresh from his taboo-shattering withdrawal from Gaza last summer, Israel’s Prime Minister Sharon touched off yet another earthquake this week. The first earthquake, disengagement, began a redrawing of Israel’s geopolitical borders by removing troops and settlers unilaterally from territory first captured in 1967. The second earthquake will redraw the contours of Israeli politics, allowing him…
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Opinion Challenging the Right
There are many reasons to applaud this month’s back-to-back speeches by Abe Foxman and Eric Yoffie on the dangers of the religious right, but here’s the most important: They have given voice to something their constituents have been thinking and feeling for a long time. American Jews need a voice that articulates their concerns on…
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Opinion Press Poland To Pass Property-Restitution Law
In 1956, a year after Auschwitz survivor Michael Taffet became an American citizen, the government of Poland nationalized his family’s property in Debica. The seizure was based on a decree issued in 1946 that permitted the government to take property still considered “abandoned” 10 years after the end of World War II. Polish Jews like…
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Opinion The Long Way Home to Lhasa
Tibet would seem to have little history in common with Israel. Yet much like Jews after the destruction of the Second Temple, today Tibetans face the daunting task of preserving their religious culture and national dreams while facing an indeterminate exile. The Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled political and cultural leader, is well aware of the…
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Opinion Sharon Centers on What’s Left
Since independence 58 years ago, Israel’s political system has lacked a true center. This week, Ariel Sharon decided to try to find it, and in the process, rewrite the history of the Jewish state. The prime minister’s jettisoning of his Likud connections is more than just politics become personal on a scale not seen since…
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Letters November 25, 2005
Recognize Chabad Way I have no doubt that Rabbi Eliezer Zalmanov, my colleague in Munster, Ind., is most deserving of the rabbinic award he garnered from his local federation (“Chabad Makes Inroads at Parley,” November 18). I am less sure, however, of the Forward’s attempt to portray his wife’s position in her local Conservative Hebrew…
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Opinion Peretz, the Next David (or Mitzna)
The Hebrew word for “periphery” is “periferiah.” Last week, in the stunning victory of Amir Peretz over Shimon Peres for the chairmanship of the Labor Party — or, as accurately, in the stunning loss of Shimon Peres to Amir Peretz — it was the periferiah that moved to Israel’s center political stage. The biggest revolution…
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Opinion Bush’s Diplomacy
As President Bush set off this week for an eight-day visit to Asia, his aides were trying to portray the trip as a low-stakes jaunt to show the flag in an important region. Bush was to attend a Pacific Rim summit in Korea, talk business with China, and shore up some friendly relationships in Japan…
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Opinion Peretz’s Moment
The Israel Labor Party has had these moments before, when a man on horseback arrives to take the fading party by storm and promise it a new lease on life. Two years ago it was Amram Mitzna, the brainy ex-general-turned-mayor who emerged from obscurity to seize the party’s reins and lead it to a disastrous…
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