Opinion

• Opinion

  A Tale Of Two Americas

  I recently went searching for my grandmother’s long-forgotten gravesite. I left my home in Los Angeles for the heartland of Ohio, where I had grown up and where she was buried. After bureaucratic runarounds, I was finally directed to an overgrown cemetery. I found my grandmother’s gravesite but, like all the surrounding sites, it had…

  By Cookie Lommel

  3 min read
• Letters

  December 24, 2004

  ‘You Gotta Go to Iran’ David Twersky’s selective quote in his December 17 opinion article on the exchange between Bill O’Reilly and his radio caller is misleading (“A Lesson in American Civics”). According to Twersky’s rendering, O’Reilly said that the United States is “a predominantly Christian nation.” “If you are really offended,” O’Reilly added according…

  Dec 24, 2004 | 6 min read
• Opinion

  Is Assimilation All That Bad?

  In 1928, Louis Wirth published “The Ghetto,” a book whose title pointed to the importance of tangible corporate boundaries in the lives of Jews in Chicago. By the century’s end, the markers of identity had shifted from the physical and geographic expressions of social distance between Jews and “America” to a more inward, individual calculus…

  By Bethamie Horowitz Dec 17, 2004 | 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

• Opinion

  A Lesson in American Civics

  If Bill O’Reilly doesn’t like America’s tradition separating church and state, he should move to Ireland. Rutting for ratings, the host of Fox News’s “O’Reilly Factor” and talk radio’s “Radio Factor” has been “defending” Christmas against threats, real and imagined. Arguing over the claims of religion in the public domain represents a decent American tradition….

  By David Twersky Dec 17, 2004 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Peace, Sharon and, Yes, Shas

  Ariel Sharon’s self-imposed coalition crisis has already forced Middle East-watchers around the world, both Jewish and non-Jewish, to re-evaluate their long-held views of Israel’s aging enfant terrible. After a 55-year career of brutal military adventurism and relentless territorial expansionism, Sharon appears to have transformed himself magically in the space of 12 months into the world’s…

  Dec 17, 2004 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  When Legislation Matches Our Best Impulses

  This Monday marks the 30th anniversary of the passage of the Jackson-Vanik Amendment. This landmark legislation, which remains a stirring case study in the importance of human rights and moral idealism as an instrument of foreign policy, provided the impetus for the mass emigration of Jews from the former Soviet Union and helped propel the…

  By Simeon Kolko Dec 17, 2004 | 3 min read
• Letters

  December 17, 2004

  Rabbi Backs Iowa Plant A December 10 letter to the editor mentions my name in declaring the slaughtering of animals at the AgriProcessors plant in Iowa as non-kosher (“Iowa Slaughterhouse Violates Rabbinic Law”). As I already have written to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, I forbid further use of my name as questioning…

  Dec 17, 2004 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  Too Hot for San Diego

  Young Judea as a boy and his brother immigrated to Israel. Over a good bottle of Santa Ynez cabernet, I told him that President Bush was pandering to American Jews by blocking progress on an Israeli-Palestinian accord. Bush kowtows to Prime Minister Sharon, I said, blocking progress toward a settlement and a viable Palestinian state….

  By James Goldsborough Dec 10, 2004 | 6 min read
• Opinion

  Less Than Reassuring Words at Columbia University

  The question of whether an anti-Israel atmosphere exists at Columbia University, as alleged in recent news reports, will presumably be answered in an internal investigation. But it’s apparent from a recent event hosted at that Ivy League campus that pro-Israel views, regardless of ideological shading, are under seige. Columbia hosted a November 20 forum titled…

  By Ralph Seliger Dec 10, 2004 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Spooked Agencies

  The nature of a country’s intelligence gathering and military or paramilitary operations has to change in accordance with changing threats to its security. This seems to be a fairly sound national security principle. But as we have seen in recent months and years in both Israel and the United States, the conceptualization and actual implementation…

  By Yossi Alpher Dec 10, 2004 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Let the Voice Of Peace Be Heard

  Immediately after Yasser Arafat’s death, Prime Minister Sharon announced that his test for “exposing the true face” of the new Palestinian leaders would be an end to incitement against Israel in the Palestinian media and education system. The prime minister was correct to insist on an end to inflammatory messages emanating from Palestinian sources. But…

  By Luis Lainer Dec 10, 2004 | 3 min read