Opinion

• Opinion

  All of Israel Responsible for One Another’s Children

  When I first hear about any terrorist tragedy, whether here in Israel or elsewhere in the world, my mind races from the victims who lost their lives to the secondary victims — the children, the children who lost and continue to lose parents and siblings and best friends and their innocence. I also fear for…

  By Drora Karniel

  3 min read
• Opinion

  King’s Spiritual Activism

  There appear to be two kinds of faith these days in America. The first, fundamentalism, promotes coerciveness and exclusivity, encouraging polarization, impenetrable boundaries and a deep suspicion of the other. The second, a type of New Age spirituality, is largely self-concerned, mainly focusing on the individual and his or her feelings and well-being. Dr. Martin…

  By Rabbi Brad Hirschfield and Irwin Kula Jan 17, 2003 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  Tend to Our Garden

  Tu B’Shvat, which we observe this Saturday, challenges us to think seriously about how we might apply authentic Jewish values to the ecological challenges confronting our planet. Sadly, some Jews are not involved in this enterprise, even though they observe the traditions, for they identify environmentalism with nonreligious, even anti-religious, elements and instinctively reject them….

  By Daniel Sperber Jan 17, 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 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

• Letters

  January 17, 2003

  Know Law of the Land Before Advising Israel The strategic advice the editorialist offers the government of Israel seems remarkably unencumbered by the sad facts of the last two-and-a-half years (“The Tin Badge II,” January 3). Contrary to the Forward’s assertion, Israel has not “insisted on remaining in control of the territories.” Furthermore, the pressure…

  Jan 17, 2003 | 5 min read
• Letters

  January 10, 2003

  Mamet’s Macho Love Of Israel Is Immature How nice that David Mamet has fallen in love with Israel in his middle age (“‘If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem’: The Power of Blunt Nostalgia,” December 27). I remember feeling the same way, except I was a teenager. Now, 30 years later, I see that the course I…

  Jan 10, 2003 | 5 min read
• Opinion

  At Home With Exile

  Israel proclaims itself the center of the Jewish world, the source of Jewish loyalty and inspiration. Even those of us who not only dwell in the Diaspora but who are in some real sense Diasporists — people who find Jewish meaning and potential in our dispersion — are for the most part prepared to acknowledge…

  By Leonard Fein Jan 10, 2003 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  How Not To Fight Terror

  The two Palestinians who blew themselves up in downtown Tel Aviv last Sunday, killing 22 innocent victims and wounding more than 100, were identified by their handlers this week as young men from the West Bank city of Nablus, Burak Hilsa and Samar A-Nuri. According to a statement from the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the…

  Jan 10, 2003 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  Don’t Cut Outreach

  The Union of American Hebrew Congregations owes everyone a better explanation than the one it offered for its decision to lay off its corps of regional outreach directors. The Reform union says the elimination of the coordinators, who work with synagogues and individuals to bring interfaith families into Judaism, was just one of many painful…

  Jan 10, 2003 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  To the Poor and Needy

  There isn’t much that’s been left unsaid about President Bush’s new economic plan, a misbegotten mixture of giveaways to the rich and pittances to working families that barely addresses the economy’s pressing need for stimulus and jobs. Last Tuesday, the day that the president unveiled his $674 billion plan in a speech in Chicago, the…

  Jan 10, 2003 | < 1 min read
• Opinion

  Singling Out Israel Doesn’t Evidence a Double Standard

  With much of the world singling out Israel for criticism — and ignoring some pretty vile abuses elsewhere in the Middle East — it is easy to buy into the argument that targeting the Jewish state alone for criticism is ipso facto illegitimate. After all, if a concern for human rights abuse alone does not…

  By Gideon Maltz Jan 10, 2003 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Selective Condemnation of Jewish State Is Antisemitic

  ‘When people criticize Zionism, they mean Jews,” Martin Luther King once said. “In short, it is antisemitism.” But what about criticizing Israel? More specifically, what about singling out the Jewish state as a perpetrator of war crimes or as an egregious violator of human rights? Is this also antisemitism? Or is the claim of antisemitism…

  By Robert Horenstein Jan 10, 2003 | 3 min read