Opinion

• Opinion

  Standing in Istanbul

  Dispersed though we may be, there are moments when all Jews come together in one spot, or so it’s said. Tradition teaches that we all stood together at Mount Sinai to receive the Law. Sociologists tell us that we all, or nearly all, sit together around the Seder table and gather together for Atonement prayers….

  3 min read
• Opinion

  Soros and the Jews

  Our annual Forward Fifty list, published last week, always seems to raise a host of eyebrows, mostly over who is left off. We try to list the 50 persons we see as most influential in shaping the public life of the American Jewish community, whether by their roles within the community or by public activity…

  Nov 21, 2003 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Open Our Communal Eyes to Spousal Abuse

  It is really most appropriate that the Hebrew month Tishri, and Succoth in particular, coincided last month with the National Domestic Violence Awareness Month. After all, the succah, the hut that Jews inhabit during the autumn harvest festival, represents the fragility of life. The winds blow and the rains fall, leaving its dwellers vulnerable to…

  By Carol Goodman Kaufman Nov 21, 2003 | 4 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 Israel’s most dangerous war is with itself

  

• 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

  Can’t Win, Can’t Afford To Lose

  Had President Bush delivered the same speech at the United Nations before the invasion of Iraq, and then turned to the international body to implement his vision, our world would be quite different today. As it is, we are stuck in Iraq: we cannot win, yet we cannot afford to lose. The president casts his…

  By Leonard Fein Nov 14, 2003 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Remembering Why We Give

  Admirers of Jewish philanthropy like to say that Jews are a generous community. It’s a flattering thought, and considering the vast sums we donate to a dizzying array of causes, it’s not far off the mark. But generosity isn’t really the point. Being generous means giving because you’re a nice sort. We give because we…

  Nov 14, 2003 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Don’t Let Them

  Eight years after the murder of Yitzhak Rabin, the unending debate over Jew-on-Jew violence has moved from the Holy Land to La La Land, in an absurd parody that only California could concoct. In the Hollywood version, the passions of the Middle East remain, but the bit about an extremist killing an Israeli leader is…

  Nov 14, 2003 | 2 min read
• Letters

  November 14, 2003

  ‘Coleman Republicans’ Only in America could a nice Jewish boy from Brooklyn go from being a long-haired war protestor at Hofstra University to law school at the University of Iowa; subsequently be named solicitor general in Minnesota under Attorney General Hubert H. Humphrey, III, before winning election as the Democratic mayor of St. Paul, then…

  Nov 14, 2003 | 5 min read
• Opinion

  Build Coalitions of Decency To Fight Hatred

  A mere 10 years ago, we felt confident that antisemitism was no longer a significant threat. But we were wrong. Most of us have been exposed to more antisemitic discourse during the last two years than we have seen in our entire lives. We note with horror the monstrous canards that continue to circulate in…

  By Eric Yoffie Nov 14, 2003 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Back to School for Israel Advocacy

  Jewish sages have written that “any love which is offered without criticism is not true love.” Recently, however, Israel’s minister for Jerusalem and Diaspora affairs, Natan Sharansky, found himself subjected to stinging rebukes over a tough critique he penned in these pages analyzing the dismal state of Jewish campus activism in the United States (“Tour…

  By Jay Schottenstein and Ronald S. Lauder Nov 14, 2003 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Over the Top Protest Down Under

  Over the last month there has been an acrimonious public confrontation between the leadership of the Australian Jewish community and those who were once that community’s natural allies and closest friends — the political left, and more particularly, the Australian Labor Party. The issue was the decision by the Sydney Peace Foundation to award its…

  By Michael Danby Nov 14, 2003 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  A People Dwelling Alone

  To the 100,000 or more people who gathered November 1 in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv to mark the eighth anniversary of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, there was perhaps some sense of urgency to the occasion. Just the day before, vandals had painted swastikas on the monument that marks the spot where Yigal Amir…

  By Leonard Fein Nov 7, 2003 | 4 min read