Opinion

• Opinion

  Should Israel Cut Hamas Some Slack Despite Terror Tunnel Discovery?

  It hasn’t gotten much attention outside Israel, but that so-called terror tunnel uncovered by the Israeli military near Gaza in early October was just the tip of a major strategic dilemma confronting the Jewish state. And like so many of Israel’s puzzles these days, the debate over how to handle it is causing tension between…

  By J.J. Goldberg

  3 min read
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  Opinion

  Lou Reed: The Punk Soul of an Underground Jew

  Of all the tributes following the death this week of Lou Reed, the transgressive, subversive bard of the street-wild and deviant, one of the strangest is this celebration by British journalist Tom Gross, which appeared online in the National Review. Yes, that National Review—the conservative journal founded by the high priest of upper-crust propriety, William…

  By J.J. Goldberg Oct 29, 2013 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Welcome to Tzedakah Club, Sandy Grandson

  Our youngest grandson will turn one year old this month. He was born last October as Hurricane Sandy swept up the East Coast. He arrived in the world during a time of uncertainty, when the limits of human ingenuity were starkly visible. As his birthday approaches, I think back over the year. Despite the fact…

  By Nechama Liss-Levinson Oct 29, 2013 | 3 min read

Columnists View All

• Jodi Rudoren This is my last column as editor of the Forward

  

• Jay Michaelson American Jews were played — now what?

  

• Rob Eshman Americans keep getting killed in the West Bank. Here’s how the US could fight that awful trend

  

• Nora Berman First Camp Auschwitz, now Alligator Alcatraz — why the right is obsessed with commodifying brutality

  

• Dan Perry What exactly is going on between Israel and Syria — and is the prospect of peace dead?

  

• Emily Tamkin Zohran Mamdani’s victory proves it: The ‘gotcha’ mode of fighting antisemitism has to go

  

The Latest

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  Opinion

  It Happened on Halloween

  The month of Halloween hasn’t been friendly to Anti-Defamation League Director Abraham Foxman’s position of authority in the Jewish community. In early October, Foxman batted away the findings of the Pew Research Center, which showed that a majority of American Jews were ambivalent about Israeli government policies by remarking, “This is a poll of everybody….

  By Eli Valley Oct 28, 2013 | < 1 min read
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  Opinion

  ‘Open Orthodoxy’ Is Not Really Orthodox At All

  The perils of religious self-definition became amusingly apparent in the recent Pew survey of American Jews. One category of “Jews” was “Jews by affinity” – Americans lacking any Jewish parentage or any Jewish background who simply choose to call themselves Jews; more than one million people so identified themselves. Similarly suspicious are the survey’s self-described…

  Oct 28, 2013 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Sheldon Adelson Crosses Line With ‘Morally Bankrupt’ Nuke Iran Remarks

  During the 2012 Republican primary campaign, the panelists on the ABC Sunday morning talk show This Week were asked to comment on a remark by Donald Trump. George Will, a generally reserved, dignified and unexcitable conservative, simply exploded. Trump, he said, was a “bloviating idiot,” and in Will’s opinion, unworthy of any serious consideration. It…

  By Eric Yoffie Oct 28, 2013 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  News Quiz: Lou Reed, Leonard Bernstein and Billy Crystal

  Lou Reed, exposed! Leonard Bernstein, less so! And Hitler? He’s hiding in plain sight in this week’s Jewish news quiz, which also touches upon twerking and Billy Crystal. (But not Billy Crystal twerking.)

  By Lenore Skenazy Oct 28, 2013 | < 1 min read
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  Opinion

  Obamacare’s Server Not Responding

  The dismaying events of the last month in Washington prove that government itself is on trial in America. This cannot be dismissed by those of us who would like to believe that the dysfunction in the nation’s capital is caused only by crazy Tea Partiers or inept web designers. The inexcusable shutdown of the federal…

  Oct 28, 2013 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  Violence Feared As Settler Pols Demonize Livni

  Tensions within Israel’s governing coalition are reaching a boiling point over the impending release of 26 more prisoners, part of the agreement between Prime Minister Netanyahu and Secretary of State Kerry that paved the way for renewal of Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. The cabinet is expected to vote on the latest release, the second in the…

  By J.J. Goldberg Oct 27, 2013 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Debate Occupation? No Thanks, We’re Jewish.

  During a recent visit to the Forward’s newsroom, Jerry Silverman, president and CEO of the Jewish Federations of North America, was brimming with enthusiasm for the upcoming annual gathering of local Jewish charity federations nationwide, known as the General Assembly, which will take place this year not in the United States, but in Jerusalem. The…

  By Larry Cohler-Esses Oct 26, 2013 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Emailing With the Pope

  Given the explosion of interest — and research — into neurochemistry, we may before too long end up with an entirely mechanistic theory of being. If a lie detector, why not a love detector? Professions of love will be trumped by chemical analysis; proof is not in the sonnets or the roses but in the…

  By Leonard Fein Oct 26, 2013 | 4 min read