Opinion

• Opinion

  What Gunter Grass Really Said

  German Nobel Prize writer Gunter Grass’s publication of the poem “What Must Be Said” touches on a host of issues surrounding the Holocaust, German-Israel relations, anti-Semitism and Iran’s threat to Israel and the entire Middle East. Comments by any Western intellectual claiming, as did Grass, that it is Israel, not Iran, which is a threat…

  By Abraham Foxman

  3 min read
• Letters

  Finding Their Place in Community via Hebrew

  In his April 13 memo to American Jews, David Hazony makes a strong case for the importance of Hebrew, and in typical Jewish fashion, readers lob back counter arguments. Ten years in Hebrew-as-a-second-language education have taught me that students who are genuinely engaged with Hebrew find the question of Hebrew’s importance moot — they have…

  Apr 19, 2012 | < 1 min read
• Letters

  A False Dichotomy

  In the April 13 op-ed “American Jews: Learn Hebrew!” David Hazony argues that American Jews have to learn Hebrew in order to connect themselves not only with Israel, but also with the future of “Jewish cultural life” worldwide. As a second-year Hebrew student at the University of Washington in Seattle, I have to disagree. While…

  Apr 19, 2012 | < 1 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 The challah that changed everything: Tracing Jewish baking back to Poland

  

• Nora Berman The Kennedy Center canceled all its ‘woke’ programming — so why is this Jewish musical OK?

  

• Dan Perry Israel’s new gift to the far right could help end the Gaza war

  

• Emily Tamkin Entering motherhood — and an obsession with the works of an Italian Jewish literary hero

  

The Latest

• Letters

  The Truth Lies in the Middle

  How interestingly ironic that the April 13 editorial section includes Jane Eisner’s piece “Debating Spinoza, Again,” about the classic example in Jewish history of Jewish intolerance and the excommunication of the Portuguese Jewish philosopher residing in Amsterdam in the 16th century, and Daniel Jonah Goldhagen’s piece about Jewish pluralism presumably because Jews “are not a…

  Apr 19, 2012 | < 1 min read
• 
  Opinion

  Act To Prevent Deaths of Children

  Two images of children have stayed with me throughout my life. One is a photograph of little boys and girls rounded up in a ghetto for deportation and likely death, displayed at the children’s museum at Yad Vashem, in Israel. From the first time I saw it, I have been haunted by this question: “How…

  By Caryl Stern Apr 19, 2012 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Hitching a Ride on the ‘Flytilla’

  Having retired from the Passover-cleaning and Seder-making business, my in-laws have, in recent years, chosen to spend the holiday at a hotel abroad, every year at a different destination. My husband and I packed up our three kids this year and joined them for 10 days of matzoh-eating and sightseeing in Provence. Since the holiday…

  By Allison Kaplan Sommer Apr 18, 2012 | 4 min read
• 
  Opinion

  Being a Jew in Palestine

  The first people I told were Safa and Imad. Good friends, they lived near me in the Aida Refugee Camp and invited me for lunch every Friday. I knew they were religious Muslims. Imad had told me that Israeli soldiers had killed his brother during the second intifada. But the topic of religion and politics…

  By Beth Miller Apr 18, 2012 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  ‘Salon’ Preview: A Feminist Icon Goes There

  Leave it to feminist icon Letty Cottin Pogrebin to spice things up. On the new episode of The Jewish Channel series “The Salon,” a conversation about the so-called “war on women” leads Pogrebin to discuss the power of the female orgasm: And in another show highlight, fellow panelist Deborah Feldman, the author of the best-selling…

  By The Sisterhood Apr 17, 2012 | < 1 min read
• 
  Opinion

  What would you call me?

  I have always been a Jew — and after a cursory dunk, the Conservative movement agrees.

  By David A.M. Wilensky Apr 17, 2012 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  The Press on Trial

  As investigative stories go, it doesn’t read like a blockbuster, hardly in the league of a Watergate scandal or the groundbreaking constitutional challenge ignited by the publication of the Pentagon Papers. The January 30 story appeared in the Jordanian newspaper Al-Ghad, written by Yousef al-Shayeb, and it described the kind of government corruption that, frankly,…

  Apr 16, 2012 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Jews Are Not as Liberal as It Seems

  Perhaps you’ve heard about that new survey of Jews and social values. Released just before Passover, it has Jewish liberals high-fiving each other all the way from West End Avenue to West Hollywood. The results show Jewish liberalism at peak strength. Legal abortion (in “most” or “all” cases) is backed by 93% of respondents. Same-sex…

  By J.J. Goldberg Apr 15, 2012 | 4 min read