Opinion

• Opinion

  Sanctimonium Santorum

  Playing the “gotcha” game is a dangerous political pastime. At best it puts public servants on the defensive, forcing them to measure every word and speak in pablum, impoverishing and degrading the public discourse. At worst an individual’s words can be misquoted or taken out of context, subjecting them to undeserved attacks. That apparently is…

  2 min read
• Opinion

  Buy the Settlers Out

  The Palestinians insist that any final settlement to their conflict with Israel must include the establishment of a state in all of the West Bank and Gaza. The current government of Israel, for its part, has shown its reluctance to evacuate any of the estimated 140 settlements. How, then, to reach a settlement on the…

  By Marcia Freedman May 2, 2003 | 3 min read
• Letters

  May 2, 2003

  Understanding of Poles Includes Remembering I was surprised to read opinion writer Wladyslaw Bartoszewski calling for a new understanding between Jews and Poles (“On Warsaw Ghetto Anniversary, A Pole Calls for Understanding,” April 18). My mother told me she hid in a neighbor’s cellar with her family during the pogroms in Poland. She was a…

  May 2, 2003 | 5 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 There’s a shocking new report on civilian deaths in Gaza. If only it were accurate.

  

• Nora Berman Is Netflix’s new show the most Jewish cartoon ever?

  

• 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

  Scripting the Scriptures

  Jewish officialdom — that small, cozy world of community leaders and other machers — is already getting agitated by Mel Gibson’s still-in-production Jesus movie. “The Passion” depicts the last 12 hours in the life of Christianity’s founder, and press reports suggest that it places blame for the man’s death firmly on Jewish shoulders. By making…

  By David Klinghoffer May 2, 2003 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  The Globalization of Antisemitism

  Antisemitism is evolving. After a period of remission owing to the horror of the Holocaust, the ancient prejudice has recently been reactivated, catalyzed by the Arab-Israeli conflict. It has entered a new era in which its main focus has shifted from the domestic to the international. Always protean in quality, always changing to take on…

  By Daniel Jonah Goldhagen May 2, 2003 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  An Unholy Alliance

  Enough, already. This dalliance with right-wing Christian groups has passed from the disagreeable fringe into the absurd and even ominous center. It is not at all clear who is using whom, but it is an unnatural and distinctly unholy alliance, one that will surely leave us weaker rather than stronger. There was a time when…

  By Leonard Fein Apr 25, 2003 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Yes, Prime Minister

  When the showdown ended this week between Yasser Arafat and his prime minister-designate, Abu Mazen, it was Arafat who blinked. With the full weight of the international community coming down on him, he was forced to back down and accept Abu Mazen’s nominee for security chief, Mohammed Dahlan. Arafat appears to have given up his…

  Apr 25, 2003 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  Expecting the Unexpected

  You can never be sure what to expect next in the Middle East, but one thing is certain: It’s never going to be what you expected. Those who march in with the surest sense that they know what they’re doing are the ones most likely to be surprised, usually unpleasantly. Case in point: the unexpected…

  Apr 25, 2003 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  Gedenk — Remember

  It was six decades ago, on April 19, 1943 — most Jewish communities will mark the anniversary on Tuesday, following the Hebrew calendar — that a group of young Jews in Nazi-occupied Warsaw began the hopeless act of resistance remembered as the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Numbering scarcely 750, armed mainly with pistols, they took on…

  Apr 25, 2003 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  What is the Jewish State to the Children of Israel?

  Recently I was asked to give a talk to my Reform synagogue’s bar and bat Mitzvah class. My Brooklyn neighborhood of brownstones and apartment buildings, nestled on the edge of Prospect Park, is a liberal, gentrified enclave, with a handful of Conservative and Reform synagogues within a several block radius. My synagogue has more than…

  By Jo-Ann Mort Apr 25, 2003 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Hunger for Healing on a Visit to Haiti

  It starts with a song. Soft at first, then louder, like slow-rolling thunder, gentle harmonies that keep time with the clapping of hands. Soon there will be time for serious talk — of politics, hard labor and the struggle to find food — but for now there is only the music. Every Haitian man, woman…

  By H. Eric Schockman Apr 25, 2003 | 3 min read