Opinion

• Opinion

  Freeing Prisoners

  It’s a curious phenomenon in today’s Middle East debate that those who speak most passionately of peace are frequently the least willing to take the steps needed to bring it. Friends and defenders of Israel have mounted an international campaign in recent days to block the release of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons for involvement…

  < 1 min read
• Opinion

  A Bridge Forward

  This week marks the 400th issue of our sister publication, the Russian-language Forward. For us here at the Forward family of newspapers, it’s a moment of pride and celebration. We’d like to think, though, that the celebration and the pride are shared by Jews around New York and across America. From its modest beginnings in…

  Jul 25, 2003 | < 1 min read
• Opinion

  The Media as Mideast Mediator

  Last month, as the violence raged unabated, more than 400 Israelis and 100 Palestinians gathered in front of Jaffa Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem to create a human chain in support of the peace process. The demonstration, newsworthy in its own right, also featured the unique spectacle of a group of gay Palestinians…

  By Lily Galili Jul 25, 2003 | 5 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

  Communal Coexistence on Campus

  Did you hear the latest campus calamity? Interdenominational dating. That’s right, Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist and even unaffiliated Jews are dating one another without regard to their denomination! This dangerous trend was brought to the public’s attention by a pair of well-meaning graduate students concerned about the assimilation of Orthodox students in secular universities. Hillel,…

  By Avraham Infeld Jul 25, 2003 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Let Belzec Victims Finally Rest in Peace

  I first visited the site of the Belzec death camp in 1979. I knew I stood at a place where nearly 500,000 Jews had been murdered from March to December 1942, but what I saw was a place long neglected and forgotten. The Germans, anxious to hide their genocide in 1943, removed the bodies from…

  By Michael Schudrich Jul 25, 2003 | 3 min read
• 
  Opinion

  Harry Truman, my flawed hero

  The antisemitism revealed in his diaries is a stain on his reputation. Still, he remains a hero of Israel

  By Abraham Foxman Jul 18, 2003 | 3 min read
• Letters

  July 18, 2003

  Israel Experience Vital Elan Ezrachi’s July 4 opinion article was a cogent reminder that for Diaspora Jewry, “it is more dangerous not to travel to Israel than it is to visit the Jewish state” (“Missing the Experience of a Lifetime”). He’s absolutely right. The growing indifference and alienation of the young can erode even Judaism….

  Jul 18, 2003 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  When Poverty is Worth Less

  ‘Chutzpah” was the title of an editorial in the June 6 issue of the Forward; the alleged audacity referred to was the Republican leadership’s exclusion of low-wage families from the recently enacted increase in the federal tax credit for families with dependent children. The editorial noted that “50 million households — those that most need…

  Jul 18, 2003 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  The ‘Jewish Issue’ Issue

  Some issues of Jewish life neither die nor even fade away. The most telling current evidence of that is the re-emergence, in recent weeks, of the “Is that a Jewish issue?” issue. Why, that is, should Jews — as Jews — care about this problem or that? Oughtn’t the Jewish agenda be limited to those…

  By Leonard Fein Jul 18, 2003 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  ‘Never Again,’ Now in the Congo

  ‘A Sept. 11 toll, every day, for 666 days,” headlined a June 25 article in a Johannesburg newspaper, The Star, on the five-year-old conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo. How odd. The death of at least 3.3 million Africans — exceeding the numbers killed in either the Korean or Vietnam wars — seems comprehensible…

  By Jocelyn Hellig Jul 18, 2003 | 5 min read
• Opinion

  Waiting for Abu Mazen’s Altalena

  As the Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, tries to stop Palestinian violence with a cease-fire rather than brute force, Israelis and their American supporters keep calling for a “Palestinian Altalena.” The Altalena was the much-chronicled ship loaded with munitions that the underground, militant Jewish militia, the Irgun, intended to use in Israel’s War of Independence…

  By Moshe Maoz Jul 18, 2003 | 4 min read