Opinion

• Opinion

  Teach Children Nonprofit Literacy

  As a community and as parents, we’re passionate about teaching our children such values as charity and loving kindness. Today it’s practically de rigueur for Jewish 13-year-olds to take on a charity project as part of becoming a bar or bat mitzvah — and among American teenagers as a whole, volunteerism has gone way up….

  By Susan Grinel

  3 min read
• Opinion

  As Israel Turns 57, New Fights Displace Old War Mentality

  Let’s take a moment, as Israel marches into its 58th and perhaps most challenging year, to ponder the Jewish state’s evolving strategic interests. First and perhaps most significantly, the perception is gradually sinking in that, for the foreseeable future, conventional military attacks on Israel are a thing of the past. The last conventional war imposed…

  By Yossi Alpher May 20, 2005 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Sharon’s Disengagement From Democracy

  This summer, Israel will withdraw its troops from Gaza and the northern West Bank and remove the 9,000 Jewish civilians who call those places home. While much has been written about Prime Minister Sharon’s disengagement process already, it is worth revisiting how this ill-advised decision was taken, for it holds a very real and threatening…

  By Yisrael Medad May 20, 2005 | 3 min read

Columnists View All

• Alyssa Katz Class assignment: Get to know your murdered Jewish neighbors

  

• Rob Eshman Liberal Zionists are under attack. A new book proves their work has never been more important

  

• Dan Perry How Israel became a country where teenagers murder each other in cold blood

  

• Emily Tamkin American Jews have a Hasan Piker problem. Solving it is going to hurt

  

• Jay Michaelson Epstein and Iran are an antisemitism mega-crisis. Here’s what Jewish organizations should do about it. 

  

The Latest

• Letters

  May 20, 2005

  Social Research Needs Strong Central Bodies I am not as convinced as opinion columnist Bethamie Horowitz that the outsourcing of research about critical areas of Jewish life to universities will prove to be a more effective way of gathering and organizing information necessary for the “ assessing the condition of America’s Jews” (“Social Research: Out…

  May 20, 2005 | 5 min read
• Opinion

  Monitoring The Monitor

  One of the more active sideshows of our time is the tangle of new organizations devoted to uncovering and broadcasting what they see as “the truth.” Now that the Internet has radically simplified the work and lowered the cost of getting such messages out, it seems a wonder that there’s room in cyberspace for all…

  By Leonard Fein May 20, 2005 | 4 min read
• Letters

  May 13, 2005

  The Case for Bolton The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has earned a reputation for being tough on nominees for the post of America’s representative to the United Nations (“Senate Probes Bolton’s Pro-Israel Efforts,” May 6). Richard Holbrooke’s nomination was held up because Holbrooke was said to be too “arrogant” and “nasty” for the U.N. post….

  May 13, 2005 | 6 min read
• Opinion

  Too Young To March?

  Gingerly, even diffidently; in the form of a question, to lessen the sting: Is the March of the Living, now in its 17th year, which this month brought more than 20,000 young people from all over the world to Poland — yes, to the camps — is the March of the Living good for the…

  By Leonard Fein May 13, 2005 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Finding the Real Israel

  As Israel celebrates its 57th birthday this week, Israelis and their friends around the world face a challenge unlike any they have encountered since the Jewish state was born. Put bluntly, things are basically okay, and nobody is quite sure what to make of it. The signs are everywhere. Israelis are experiencing a mild economic…

  May 13, 2005 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Justice in Retirement

  While Americans squabble over a theoretical retirement crisis that may or may not develop over the next half-century, a real retirement crisis is unfolding before us right now, and nobody’s doing a thing. It’s called our collapsing pension system. The latest pension plan to collapse was the United Airlines plan, which the bankrupt airline dumped…

  May 13, 2005 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  An Attempt To Arrest Our Alliance With Evangelicals

  The lobbying scandal that may lead to the downfall of Republican House Majority Leader Tom DeLay — a conservative evangelical Christian purportedly sabotaged by his friendship with an Orthodox Jewish lobbyist, Jack Abramoff — is of interest for what it says about the value of honesty in the political and media elite. Abramoff is depicted…

  By David Klinghoffer May 13, 2005 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Under the Veil of Iran’s Nuclear Aspirations

  The Iran of May 2005 is, in some ways, looking very similar to the Iran of November 1979. Back then, when the American embassy in Tehran was seized by hardline university students, every other domestic issue was cast into oblivion. Nothing mattered more than the hostages. Nothing superseded the war with the “Great Satan.” The…

  By Roya Hakakian May 13, 2005 | 3 min read