Opinion

• Opinion

  How To Defend Quebec’s Secularism Charter

  The Charter of Values seeks to ban conspicuous religious symbols. / Government of Quebec Do you remember the Quebec government’s Charter of Values, the proposed legislation that would bar public workers from wearing conspicuous religious symbols — like the kippah, hijab or turban — on the job? Of course you do. Have you been biting…

  By Sigal Samuel

  3 min read
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  Opinion

  How Not To Solve Israel’s Housing Crisis

  Has Israel just eased the housing crisis — or issued an invitation for wanton wastage of natural resources? From the start of 2014 on Wednesday, municipal taxes on second homes will double. Or to be accurate, taxes on all homes that are occupied for less than nine months a year will be double taxed. This…

  By Nathan Jeffay Dec 26, 2013 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  Israel Must Work With Bedouin To Develop Negev for All

  (JTA) — This past May, I made a YouTube video with the Israeli NGO Rabbis for Human Rights that drew a parallel between my role as Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof,” in which the Jews in Sholem Aleichem’s tale faced expulsion from the Russian shtetl of Anatevka, and a Knesset proposal to forcibly displace…

  By Theodore Bikel Dec 26, 2013 | 3 min read

Columnists View All

• Jay Michaelson What can really be done to prevent antisemitic attacks like Bondi Beach?

  

• Rob Eshman Australia shooting terrifies Jews worldwide — and strengthens the case for Israel

  

• Nora Berman Did crypto-Jews invent the modern tarot deck?

  

• Dan Perry The 3 responses to the Bondi Beach Hanukkah attack that could make Jews safer

  

• Emily Tamkin The fundamental miscalculation behind the GOP’s antisemitism crisis

  

The Latest

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  Opinion

  As One Jewish Retail Empire Falls, Another Rises

  Two retail empires with Jewish roots collided in New York this week — one on its deathbed, the other ready to take its place. Loehmann’s, the fashion discounter founded in 1921 by an enterprising department-store buyer named Frieda Loehmann, announced this week it will shut down its remaining 39 stores after its third bankruptcy filing….

  By Michael Kaminer Dec 26, 2013 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  Shunning Christmas Is Bad Choice for Jews in Heartland

  Sarah Seltzer takes aim at Jews who choose to embrace a number of “Christian” traditions. Her guidance is simple: “No trees, no wreaths, no carols, no cookies — unless, of course, they’re fortune cookies.” As a firmly rooted Jew, I took offence to Seltzer’s, and I worry about what they imply. It seems that for…

  By Max Edwards Dec 25, 2013 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  For Edgar Bronfman, Humanity to LGBT People Was Intuitive

  Six years ago, I had lunch with Edgar Bronfman, along with the Samuel Bronfman Foundation’s executive director, Dana Raucher, at the Four Seasons in New York. The dining area was quiet and empty, and I was nervous. Dana whispered to me, “There’s Barbara Walters. Don’t look.” I was there to tell Edgar how much it…

  By Idit Klein Dec 24, 2013 | < 1 min read
• Opinion

  A Man Who Took Jewish Faith as a Challenge

  Last summer in Israel, one of the teenage Bronfman Fellows asked me why the group wasn’t required to pray together every morning. He found it to be offensive, and a real loss that a pluralistic group of Jews weren’t learning to pray as a means to transcend their differences of opinion and practice. I took…

  By Naamah Paley Dec 24, 2013 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  How Edgar Bronfman Transformed an Alienated Russian Jew

  Edgar Bronfman, did not know me, and I had limited interactions with him. Yet I feel a deep sense of loss at his passing. In 1988, as a Russian emigre living in Brooklyn, I was completely unaffiliated, and turned off by the Jewish community. Yet my alienation did not disqualify me from being selected to…

  By Ella Shteingart Dec 24, 2013 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  I Never Said Thanks to Edgar Bronfman

  My first meeting with Edgar was not what you’d call auspicious. I was 17 and had just, mysteriously, been selected for Edgar’s newest philanthropic venture, the Bronfman Youth Fellowship in Israel. This was a mystery because I was a very sheepish and reluctant Jew — as Edgar himself had been at that age — and…

  By Jonathan Tepperman Dec 24, 2013 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  Edgar Bronfman’s Enduring Contribution to Jewish Youth

  Over the course of his life, Edgar Bronfman, who died December 21 at age 84, founded and supported innumerable Jewish charitable causes, including many with other members of his family. But among those he launched on his own, he considered the most significant to be the Bronfman Youth Fellowships, a Jewish identity program for Israelis…

  By Becky Voorwinde Dec 24, 2013 | 1 min read
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  Opinion

  Holiday Season Underlines Shifts in Judaism as Self-Definition Fades

  ‘Tis the season once again — the season of the December Dilemma. In its original form, the alliterative allusion is to the challenge of raising Jewish kids in a non-Jewish society. Everyone loves Christmas, right? So how come we don’t celebrate it? But the December Dilemma is dated. A majority of non-Orthodox Jewish marriages are…

  By Jay Michaelson Dec 24, 2013 | 4 min read