Opinion

• Letters

  July 16, 2004

  A Politician by Intent, A Jew by Accident Forgive me for asking, but just what kind of a Jew is Ken Mehlman (“Bush Campaign Manager Sees Virtue in Taking No Prisoners,” July 9)? If the Forward were making an issue of the Jewishness of some ballplayer, that’s one thing. But when it’s someone in a…

  6 min read
• Opinion

  Death Be Not Loud

  Rest easy, help is on the way. It comes to us via a dazzling invention by Robert Barrows, of Burlingame, Calif., as reported the other day by Reuters. While others engage, or fail to engage, in leaps of faith, Barrows is concerned with bridging the gap of death. Accordingly, he proposes a talking tombstone, wherein…

  By Leonard Fein Jul 16, 2004 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Judging the Fence

  With its spurious ruling last week on the legality of Israel’s West Bank security fence, the International Court of Justice has created an unnecessary complication in the search for Middle East peace and undermined its own credibility as an arbiter of international law. The truth is that the damage to the court is graver than…

  Jul 16, 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 A new humanitarian outrage is unfolding in the Middle East. It’s not in Gaza

  

• Nora Berman The left is turning on AOC over Israel — and imperiling its own agenda

  

• Dan Perry Actually, Trump made things between Israel and Iran way worse

  

• Emily Tamkin Is starvation in Gaza really Israel’s fault? The facts are clear

  

The Latest

• Opinion

  Cry for Argentina

  Ten years have passed since Argentina’s main Jewish communal center was hit by a terrorist bomb on July 18, 1994, leaving 85 persons dead and 250 injured in what remains the worst antisemitic attack since World War II. Ten years of botched investigations, rumormongering, diplomatic stonewalling — yet the case is no closer to resolution….

  Jul 16, 2004 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  The Specter of Another Political Murder

  The new rabbinic pronouncements, rendered loudly from the bare hilltops of Judea and Samaria, that label Prime Minister Sharon a traitor and that imply — in veiled and barely deniable innuendo — that he could or should or must be murdered, are merely one end of the spectrum of right-wing settler opposition to disengagement. The…

  By Yossi Alpher Jul 16, 2004 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Europe at a ‘Cross’-roads

  Scarcely noticed in this country, the European Union took a giant step forward last month toward the consolidation of Europe as a unitary power, with the approval at a mid-June summit in Brussels of a draft E.U. constitution. The constitution, which still faces the enormous hurdle of ratification by all 25 member states, contains one…

  By Jeffry Mallow Jul 16, 2004 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Shalom, Austrian President Thomas Klestil

  Some 36 hours after his rather sudden death last week, I received a personal letter from Austrian President Thomas Klestil. In his letter, Klestil wrote that he fully intended to fight for the Jewish cause until his very last day in office. The envelope was postmarked July 2, which turned out to be his final…

  By Ruth Weinberger Jul 16, 2004 | 4 min read
• Letters

  July 9, 2004

  Respect Western Wall The women’s section of the Western Wall welcomes all — Jew/non-Jew, Orthodox/non-Orthodox, one-time visitors/regulars, short-sleeves/long-skirts;those praying Sephardic, Ashkenazi or not at all (“Breaking Sacred Ground for Equality,” July 2). There’s almost total freedom, the only request being to respect the minhag hamakom, or the local custom, and abstain from conspicuous group prayer…

  Jul 9, 2004 | 7 min read
• Opinion

  EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK

  The death of Marlon Brando last week revived painful memories of the actor’s controversial appearance on “Larry King Live” on April 5, 1996, in which he criticized Jewish Hollywood moguls for their seeming insensitivity to blacks and other minorities. The interview, coming at a time when public criticism of Jewish influence still was mercifully rare,…

  Jul 9, 2004 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Herzl’s Dream

  Theodor Herzl was only 37 when he convened the first World Zionist Congress in Switzerland in late August 1897 and began his campaign to create a Jewish state. A Viennese journalist and playwright of middling repute, he somehow had the vision to recognize that he had changed history. “At Basel,” he wrote in his diary…

  Jul 9, 2004 | < 1 min read
• Opinion

  Brando’s Jews

  The hot topic of discussion among Jewish political mavens right now is the Democratic primary contest in the Fourth Congressional District in Georgia, where former Rep. Cynthia McKinney is seeking to recapture the congressional seat she lost two years ago. McKinney, a five-term House veteran, had developed a national reputation as a defender of Palestinian…

  Jul 9, 2004 | 2 min read