Opinion

• 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

  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

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

  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
• Letters

  April 25, 2003

  Neo-Chasidism Aids Continuity Efforts I read with interest Allan Nadler’s stinging impressions and astute observations of a recent Jewish Renewal conference (“Can New Agers Channel the Old Rebbes’ Spirit?,” April 18). I would like to remind him that Jewish illiteracy is a far-reaching communal problem and is hardly limited to Jewish Renewal. The causes of…

  Apr 25, 2003 | 5 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
• Opinion

  The Cost of Winning Peace in Iraq

  For all the talk about whether the United States should cede some control of rebuilding Iraq to the United Nations — which, out of self-interest, it probably should — peace will be extremely difficult to win without a serious economic commitment by the Bush administration. The recent experience in Afghanistan is a good reference point…

  By Lee Feinstein Apr 25, 2003 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  How Soloveitchik Saw Interreligious Dialogue

  In September 2000, a Baltimore-based institute for interfaith dialogue issued a statement titled “Dabru Emet: A Jewish Statement on Christians and Christianity.” The statement enumerated a series of theological beliefs shared by Jews and Christians, and insisted that such a statement was essential given the dramatic change during the last four decades in Christian attitudes…

  By Meir Soloveichik Apr 25, 2003 | 4 min read
• Letters

  April 18, 2003

  Mideast Assyrians Are Aramaic’s Only Hope Your article about the pro-American troop rally in Chicago (“Iraq War Pushes Little-Known Assyrians to Fore,” April 4) showed once again that as the Jewish community becomes more educated to the situation of medieval and contemporary Assyrians, it will be less subject to the biases and myths that many…

  Apr 18, 2003 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Wrapping Justice in the American Flag

  Every modern war has its defining picture — the iconic image that stands for future generations as the summation of what the war was about. For World War II, it was the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima; for Vietnam, the naked girl fleeing a napalm attack; for the Six-Day War, the tousle-haired soldier…

  By Kathleen Peratis Apr 18, 2003 | 5 min read