Opinion

• Opinion

  Our Union’s Jewish State

  If anyone else has pointed out what a Jewish piece of oratory the recent State of the Union address was, I’m not aware of it. The ethos, the whole moral outlook, was Jewish, and this observation raises a question: How did America come to be the most Judaic country on earth, a country where one…

  By David Klinghoffer

  3 min read
• Opinion

  If It Quacks Like a Duck

  Antonin Scalia, the cerebral associate justice of the United States Supreme Court — and President Bush’s reputed favorite for chief justice — is a man who knows something about ducks. He hunts them with passion and skill, by his own account, and eats them with gusto. Just this month he managed to bag a few…

  Jan 30, 2004 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Weapons of Distraction

  Faced with growing public and professional skepticism over their claim that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and was prepared to deploy them last year, the Bush administration and its allies are now scrambling to find a backup position that leaves them some shred of credibility. They seemed to be getting one this week from…

  Jan 30, 2004 | 2 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 I have the answer to Jon Stewart’s toughest question about Israel

  

• Nora Berman ‘Eddington’ is full of conspiracy theories but it’s not about Jews. Or is it?

  

• Dan Perry Recognizing a Palestinian state is a great way to doom Palestinians

  

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

  

The Latest

• Opinion

  Offering Our Services Between Services in El Salvador

  The sun in Ciudad Romero in El Salvador is as glaring and hot as the Negev sun. Yes, El Salvador. It’s not exactly (or even approximately) a tourist mecca, but it is a mecca of sorts to delegations organized by American Jewish World Service, a rapidly growing and increasingly effective organization devoted to connecting Jews…

  By Leonard Fein Jan 30, 2004 | 6 min read
• Opinion

  Man Can’t Live On Faith Alone

  No doubt about it, the sight of the Grand Canyon is awe-inspiring. Those so inclined are sure to wonder, as they look out at it, at God’s marvels. But these days, our government does not leave the response to our inclination; it tells us what to feel. Right there on a bronze plaque mounted on…

  By Leonard Fein Jan 23, 2004 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  The Message From Iowa

  Twenty-eight years ago, in January 1976, Democrats in Iowa put their peculiar caucus system on the national map by upending conventional wisdom and making an obscure Southern governor, Jimmy Carter, the party’s presidential front-runner. With the Watergate scandal still searingly fresh, Iowa sent a message to the political establishment that Americans wanted new faces in…

  Jan 23, 2004 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  Teach Your Children

  In any culture, educating the young in the values of their society is an essential guarantor of the society’s health and future. What’s too often overlooked is that the reverse is equally true. A successful educational system is itself a sign of a healthy culture. Using that yardstick, there’s good news in the Forward’s spring…

  Jan 23, 2004 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  A Tradition That Embraces Looking to the Heavens

  In the 18th century the great talmudist Rabbi Yonatan Eybeschutz penned a commentary to Genesis arguing that the Tower of Babel was not really a tower at all. Rather, he wrote, it was a chamber in which the burning of fuel would propel the edifice toward the heavens. We need not worry, however, that President…

  By Yitzchok Adlerstein Jan 23, 2004 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  France Loses Its Head Over Headscarves

  Ten thousand people, mostly Muslim women, marched in protest through Paris on Saturday. Similar demonstrations by Muslim women took place in other cities in Europe and the Middle East. Two thousand people turned out in Stockholm, 2,400 in London, 2,500 in Beirut, 300 in Nablus, about 100 in Washington, D.C. A typical chant: “My scarf,…

  By Kathleen Peratis Jan 23, 2004 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Our Unfinished 40-Year War

  This week’s State of the Union speech provided an occasion for Americans to reflect upon how much our nation has accomplished and how much remains to be achieved. We’ve been to the moon and landed a vehicle on Mars — and we still dream of going further. That is the promise of America. But as…

  By Hannah Rosenthal Jan 23, 2004 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  A Generational Shift That Isn’t

  ‘Norman Podhoretz won, after all,” a dinner guest remarked the other evening. By which he meant that after years if not decades of being regarded with mere contempt by the Jewish intellectual establishment, which is resolutely left in orientation, Podhoretz and his extended family and their friends have become the public face of America’s Jews,…

  By Leonard Fein Jan 16, 2004 | 4 min read