Opinion

• Opinion

  Gingrich: Romney Made Survivors Eat Treyf!

  Mitt Romney forced Holocaust survivors to eat non-Kosher food, a Gingrich robocall claimed today. The claim ties longstanding criticism over a 2003 veto Romney signed as Massachusetts governor to the specter of mistreated Holocaust survivors in an 11th-hour bid for south Florida’s Jewish vote. The call, available here, references a bill Romney vetoed as governor…

  By Josh Nathan-Kazis

  < 1 min read
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  Opinion

  The Super Schlep

  The Great Schlep is back. That’s the campaign that, in 2008, enlisted comedian Sarah Silverman to guilt young Jews into traveling to Florida to convince their grandparents to vote for Barack Obama. Now, the organization that ran the Great Schlep has reorganized for the 2012 campaign — this time as a super PAC. “If Barack…

  By Josh Nathan-Kazis Jan 30, 2012 | < 1 min read
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  Opinion

  Who the !?@# Is Saul Alinsky?!

  “Republicans have created this completely fictional president. His name is Barack X. And he is an Islamo-Socialist-Revolutionary who is coming for your guns, raising your taxes, slashing the military, apologizing to other countries, and taking his cues from Europe, or worse yet…Saul Alinsky!” — Bill Maher (note: contains explicit language; in other words, this is…

  By Gal Beckerman Jan 30, 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 I have the answer to Jon Stewart’s toughest question about Israel

  

• Nora Berman ‘Eddington’ is full of conspiracy theories but it’s not about Jews. Or is it?

  

• Dan Perry Recognizing a Palestinian state is a great way to doom Palestinians

  

• Emily Tamkin Is starvation in Gaza really Israel’s fault? The facts are clear

  

The Latest

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  Opinion

  Echoes of U.S. Racism in Israel

  An easy case followed by a harder case: At the beginning January, Israel’s Channel 2 reported that it had encountered in the town of Kiryat Malachi what used to be called here in the United States a “restrictive covenant.” Such a covenant is a legal device that enables the seller (or renter) of real estate…

  By Leonard Fein Jan 29, 2012 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Wiesenthal Center Posts Anti-Semitic Cartoons

  The Simon Wiesenthal Center yesterday trumpeted its success in forcing YouTube to remove a heinously anti-semitic Iranian animated cartoon. Putting the principles of free speech aside for a second, it’s difficult to see what possible good YouTube could be doing by hosting such hateful propaganda. As the Wiesenthal Center notes, the campaign of which the…

  By Dan Friedman Jan 27, 2012 | < 1 min read
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  Opinion

  Bagels and Iran

  Democrats walk a fine line these days when they reach out to the organized, activist wing of the Jewish community. One side beckons with an ardent, almost scolding reminder of the Jewish mandate to care for the needy. On the other side, an urgent, almost pleading defense of the Democrats’ record on Israel. The danger:…

  By J.J. Goldberg Jan 27, 2012 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  The Adelson Factor

  Any discussion of Sheldon Adelson’s dominant role in both American and Israeli politics must begin with a fundamental ackowledgement: Everything about it is legal and transparent. But that is what makes it even more troubling. In just the past month, Adelson and his wife, Miriam, have garnered headlines in the United States by donating a…

  Jan 27, 2012 | 3 min read
• Letters

  Successes, Too

  As the Rabbi of Congregation B’nai Israel in Northampton, Mass., I was certainly proud of the Lander Grinspoon Academy, our local K-6 day school, cited in a recent article as an exception to the trend of other Schechter-affiliated schools shrinking or closing (“What Does Schechter Decline Mean?” January 27). However, I also believe it is…

  Jan 26, 2012 | < 1 min read
• Letters

  A Clear Problem

  It’s disgraceful that Jewish college presidents are ambivalent about publicly condemning and combating campus anti-Semitism, or even acknowledging that this problem exists (“College Leaders Balance Israel and Speech,” January 20). Your article notes that some Jewish college presidents are “skeptical” about the Department of Education’s new policy to enforce Title VI of the Civil Rights…

  Jan 26, 2012 | < 1 min read
• Letters

  Changing Poland

  As a child of Jewish Holocaust survivors from Poland and the Ukraine, as well as an American Fulbright who lived in Poland for a year, I am encouraged by the Palikot movement and the radical changes evidenced in Polish politics, described in the December 9 article, “Not Your Grandma’s Poland Anymore.” With Palikot garnering 10%…

  Jan 26, 2012 | < 1 min read
• Opinion

  The Times Enters the Shtetlsphere

  It is not uncommon for us here in the small world of Jewish journalism (or, as Marc Tracy over at Tablet so aptly dubbed it, the “shtetlsphere”) to marvel when The New York Times runs a story that would seem even too narrowly Jewish (or Israeli) for us. It happens, strangely, all the time. We…

  By Gal Beckerman Jan 26, 2012 | < 1 min read