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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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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Opinion A New Year
It has become a custom of this newspaper each September to note the arrival of the Jewish New Year with a doleful comment on the state of the world this particular month and the hope that things will change in the year ahead. Four years ago we were saddened by the eruption of the Palestinian…
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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…
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Opinion The Way We Were, The Way We Are
Their arrival was not auspicious. When 23 Jews came to New Amsterdam on an early September day in 1654, 350 years ago, two of their number were thrown into jail as security for money still owed for the group’s passage. Although those still at liberty were able to pay off the fare by auctioning their…
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Opinion Cut Losses in an Unwinnable War
The extraordinary terrorist events in Russia in recent weeks are in many ways unique. But the Russia-Chechnya conflict also has an important element in common with other arenas where, for a variety of mostly bad reasons, powerful non-Muslim societies are ruling over Muslims. Chechnya, Iraq, Gaza — all have become lose-lose situations for the occupier….
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Opinion Sharon: Pathetic, Heroic, Villainous
W ill the real Ariel Sharon please stand up? Probably not. Indeed, it’s entirely possible that Sharon does not know which of his personae is the “real” one. There’s the pathetic Sharon, and the heroic Sharon, and the villainous Sharon — and just now, they seem to be in terminal competition with one another. The…
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Opinion The Madness of Beslan
In a place where there are no human beings, the Talmud teaches, see to it that you remain human. When those around you have lost their humanity, cut themselves off from the divine spark within them, that is the time to cling to your humanity with all your might. In a time of madness, keep…
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Opinion ‘Pro-Israel’? Hardly.
However the sordid facts play out in the current FBI investigation of alleged spying on Israel’s behalf by a senior Pentagon analyst, they raise a raft of nettlesome questions — and memories. Recall, for example, that the heart of Jonathan Pollard’s self-justification was that he passed on to Israel information regarding Iraq’s evolving capabilities for…
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