Opinion

• Opinion

  Letter to a Young Venture Philanthropist

  Judging from the explosion in popularity of “venture philanthropy” initiatives in local communities, one would be excused for thinking we are in the midst of a renaissance of sorts. In federation after federation, these new groups are beginning with great fanfare and proceeding, or ending, with decidedly mixed results. One thing is certain, though: They…

  By Mark Charendoff

  3 min read
• Opinion

  Sad, But Not Surprising

  No one familiar with the Middle East will be surprised by the spectacular wave of violence that erupted in Israel and the territories this week, while the applause was still echoing from last week’s peace summits in Aqaba and Sharm al-Sheikh. Deeply saddened, yes, but not surprised. Hamas, we knew, would strike sooner or later….

  Jun 13, 2003 | 3 min read
• Letters

  June 13, 2003

  Landmark Policy Fair The American Jewish Congress finds it “profoundly troubling” that the federal Department of the Interior has issued a new policy that will treat all historically landmarked buildings, whether secular or religious, neutrally when it comes to grants for preservation repair costs (“Group Pans Church Grant,” June 6). While there would be justifiable…

  Jun 13, 2003 | 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 The challah that changed everything: Tracing Jewish baking back to Poland

  

• Nora Berman The Kennedy Center canceled all its ‘woke’ programming — so why is this Jewish musical OK?

  

• Dan Perry Israel’s new gift to the far right could help end the Gaza war

  

• Emily Tamkin Entering motherhood — and an obsession with the works of an Italian Jewish literary hero

  

The Latest

• Opinion

  On Choice, a Wake-up Call

  The ban enacted by Congress last week on the procedure known as “partial birth abortion” was unwise and arguably poses a real threat to women’s health. The procedure is an extremely rare, last-resort method, used when a woman needs to terminate a pregnancy at an advanced stage and other methods are deemed too dangerous. Denying…

  Jun 13, 2003 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  (Orthodo)X-Men, On Screen and Off

  In our May 23 issue, Ami Eden argued that the opposing forces in the blockbuster film, “X2: X-Men United,” could be interpreted as metaphor for two radical theological responses to the Holocaust — one belonging to Rabbi Irving “Yitz” Greenberg, the other to the late Rabbi Meir Kahane. The good-guy mutants, Eden noted, are led…

  By Irving Greenberg Jun 13, 2003 | 6 min read
• Opinion

  Keep Taboo on Conversion to Christianity

  On contemplating a Jew who has become a Christian, such as indicted corporate lawyer Mark Belnick, the sensation you get may be like being on a roller coaster that has begun its swooping drop from a great height, as if the bottom of your stomach had slid away. Featured in a recent front-page Wall Street…

  By David Klinghoffer Jun 13, 2003 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  From Paris to Jerusalem

  I was in Israel several days ago, at the very time when the government of Israel accepted the diplomatic quartet’s “road map.” I came with a double objective: to instill a new dynamic in French-Israeli relations and to express my conviction that it is possible and necessary to seize the new opportunity that has been…

  By Dominique De Villepin Jun 13, 2003 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Political Truth and the Rosenbergs

  Fifty years ago on June 19, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed after having been convicted of the crime of transmitting American atomic secrets to the Soviet Union during the 1940s. The Rosenberg case continues to evoke emotions, stir passions, raise disturbing questions and defy easy resolution. The discomfort stirred by this haunting episode has…

  By Simeon Kolko Jun 13, 2003 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Chutzpah

  You might think that after promising to cut taxes for all Americans and then discovering that 50 million households — those that most needed it — would get nothing, the Republican leadership would be embarrassed and try to fix things. But that would understate the chutzpah of the Republican leadership, which knows, it seems, no…

  Jun 6, 2003 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  Austria’s Endangered Community

  In 1938 the Austrian Jewish community, one of the richest in Europe, numbered 200,000 souls. After the Holocaust only a handful remained. Neither the Germans nor the Austrians felt responsible for rebuilding this once flourishing community, nor for restituting communal property that had been Aryanized. For nearly four decades after World War II, the organized…

  By Ariel Muzicant Jun 6, 2003 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Big Media Takes Over Our Airwaves

  Wondering why the media has been so uncritical of an administration that went to war on circumstantial evidence, and cut taxes for the rich but not the poor? Look no further than this week’s Federal Communications Commission decision to reward the country’s principal media players by making it easier for them to control all of…

  By Daniel Meltzer Jun 6, 2003 | 3 min read