Opinion

• Opinion

  The Sins We Have Sinned

  It’s not clear how it happened, but somehow Yom Kippur seems to have been canceled this year. The public is duly warned. That’s right: Jews are not permitted this year to find fault in themselves or to repent of any wrongdoing. We have done nothing wrong. It’s official. All our troubles are somebody else’s fault….

  2 min read
• Opinion

  The World’s Woes, As Soap Opera

  Reality has invaded the West Wing — or, rather, “The West Wing.” Yes, America’s favorite political soap opera, after two years of inhabiting an alternative dimension where Democrats still ruled the roost and conflicts were always resolved with a hug, decided in its season premiere last week to catch up with the real world. Suddenly…

  By Oren Rawls Oct 3, 2003 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  The Importance of ‘Marrying In’

  Is it wrong for Jews to believe that Jews should marry other Jews? The question was raised during the national political campaign in 2000, in the context of Senator Joseph Lieberman’s vice presidential candidacy. As an observant Jew, the senator was assumed to embrace the religious tradition’s view on intermarriage, a view unarguably and unambiguously…

  Oct 3, 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

  The Iraqi Frying Pan

  The fear, of course, is that the entire Iraq operation will stay bogged down. Perhaps the Iraqi people will drop their growing hostility to the occupying power once the electricity goes on for good and the streets are safe and the oil begins to flow, but there is no reason to think that these and…

  By Leonard Fein Sep 26, 2003 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  A Discredit to the League

  The Anti-Defamation League did itself and the American Jewish community a disservice this week with its festive dinner honoring the Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi. Berlusconi’s ethical record as a businessman and as prime minister are an embarrassment to Italian democracy. His relations with fascists and fascism are an affront to Jews in Italy and…

  Sep 26, 2003 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  Survey Iz Mir

  Sometimes it seems we’re all drowning in numbers. Politicians debate the deficit while eyeing the polls. Computer wonks boast of all the bits in their latest chip. Generals and journalists tussle over the speed of our soldiers’ advance to Baghdad and the number killed en route. And everyone’s trying to count California gubernatorial candidates. We…

  Sep 26, 2003 | 3 min read
• Letters

  September 26, 2003

  Survey Affects People Lost in the criticism of the fraudulent intermarriage number is a fuller understanding of its impact on people’s lives (“The 52% Fraud,” September 12). The 1990 population survey affected the emotional lives of individuals and families. Having declared a crisis, many in the organized Jewish community accused those Jews who fell in…

  Sep 26, 2003 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  The Failed State of the Palestinians

  Ten years after the signing of the Oslo accords, three years after the outbreak of the intifada and three weeks after the fall of prime minister Mahmoud Abbas’s government, this much is clear about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Without a tough strategic decision to enforce what Max Weber called the hallmark of sovereignty — the monopoly…

  By Shlomo Avineri Sep 26, 2003 | 4 min read
• Letters

  September 26, 2003

  The finding of the 1990 National Jewish Population Survey that 52% of Jews who married from 1985 to 1990 had married non-Jews was nothing less than a clarion call to action for organized Jewry (“The 52% Fraud,” September 12). Jewish continuity commissions were formed in many Jewish communities. Birthright Israel was established. A foundation for…

  By Ira Sheskin Sep 26, 2003 | 5 min read
• Opinion

  Israeli Double-Talk of Peace

  Ten years ago I had the honor of being the first Palestinian journalist to interview Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, for the leading daily Al Quds. “Mr. Prime Minister,” I asked him, “what is your vision for the future of the Palestinians in 10 or 15 years?” “I believe that the future of the Palestinians…

  By Daoud Kuttab Sep 26, 2003 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Reassess America’s Mideast Policy

  After three years of violence, a seemingly unending Israeli-Palestinian conflict appears resistant to any negotiated solution. From the failure at Camp David in 2000 to the debacle at Taba, from the now-forgotten Mitchell report to the abortive missions of CIA Director George Tenet and General Anthony Zinni, and most recently the wildly off-course “road map,”…

  By Scott Lasensky Sep 26, 2003 | 4 min read