Opinion

• Letters

  The Media Has Rights, And Responsibilities

  Your September 23 article regarding Sheldon Adelson, Ronald Lauder, and Israel’s Channel 10, “American Billionaire Sparks Israeli Media Furor,” misses the main point. The article asserts only the media’s rights, and ignores the media’s responsibilities, in reporting news. You report that a number of editors at Channel 10 resigned when they were forced to issue…

  < 1 min read
• Letters

  Awaited Realignment

  In assessing the growing divide in American Jewish opinion regarding how to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Jay Michaelson (“The Logical Realignment,” October 14) claims this “is simply an alignment of conservatives with conservative policies and of liberals with liberal ones.” Were it this simple, the great liberal majority of American Jews would unambiguously support President…

  Nov 3, 2011 | < 1 min read
• Opinion

  Mideast Conflict as Zero-Sum Game

  Several readers have written in to protest my last column, which dissected conservative responses to the recent summons to Jewish unity issued by the Anti-Defamation League and American Jewish Committee. Reader complaints are nothing unusual, but this time some good points were raised that forced me to rethink. In the process I’ve come across some…

  By J.J. Goldberg Nov 3, 2011 | 4 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 The left is turning on AOC over Israel — and imperiling its own agenda

  

• 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

• Opinion

  Who Are American Jews?

  As Jewish traditions go, conducting a decennial National Jewish Population Study under the auspices of the federation movement has a very short history, and it was broken when the Jewish Federations of North America decided not to support a 2010 study. For researchers, the absence of support for a study reflects the weakened state of…

  By Leonard Saxe Nov 3, 2011 | 4 min read
• 
  Opinion

  Jews Need Count, Not Wishful Thinking

  Optimism is a good thing. But there is a difference between optimism and wishful thinking. This fall would have seen the release of a new National Jewish Population Survey, the decennial project that was killed when the Jewish Federations of North America decided it wasn’t worth funding. Instead, based on scattered evidence, the American Jewish…

  By David Marker Nov 3, 2011 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  J Street Staffer Circulates Slam of ECI

  Liberal Jews have taken turns over the past few weeks whacking at the Emergency Committee for Israel’s advertisement alleging anti-Semitism at the Occupy Wall Street protests. Eliot Spitzer called the ad “despicable” on Slate; Richard Cohen called it “reprehensible” in his Washington Post column; and J Street said it “slandered” Occupy Wall Street. A new…

  By Josh Nathan-Kazis Nov 2, 2011 | 2 min read
• 
  Opinion

  Another Goldstone Inaccuracy

  With his New York Times op-ed today, Judge Richard Goldstone continues his long march towards insuring that his name no longer be synonymous with self-hating, Israel-bashing Jew. He has written to argue — from his vantage point of having been a judge in apartheid-era South Africa — that the attempt to label the situation in…

  By Gal Beckerman Nov 1, 2011 | 2 min read
• 
  Opinion

  American Food Policy Harms Neediest

  Food plays a central and sensory role in our lives and serves as a map of our history. Meals, recipes and the acts of eating and drinking teach us about who we are, where we live and where we come from. But at a time of the year when apples and squash flood our tables…

  By Ruth Messinger Nov 1, 2011 | 4 min read
• 
  Opinion

  School Tuition Should Be Based on Income

  Recently, my local Jewish newspaper published its perennial look at how day school tuition is rising faster than inflation. This year’s article featured our only local co-educational Jewish high school, which I attended years ago and to which, due to rising costs, I was unable to send my own children. The resulting polarization of the…

  By Aurora Mendelsohn Oct 31, 2011 | 3 min read
• 
  Opinion

  It’s Inequality, Stupid

  The report, requested several years ago and released October 25, has the imprimatur of the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office and the benefit of rigorous analysis of government data. So it must be taken seriously. The stark message: Income inequality has grown dramatically in the last three decades, spurred on by government policy that has allowed…

  Oct 31, 2011 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  Bibi Netanyahu: Islamic Scholar?

  Like Vladimir Putin, who can just don a wetsuit and emerge from a deep sea dive holding two sixth-century artifacts, there is apparently nothing Benjamin Netanyahu can’t do. Just read the seventh paragraph of this New York Times story, about the opening of the Metropolitan Museum’s new Islamic art galleries. It mentions a visit that…

  By Gal Beckerman Oct 30, 2011 | < 1 min read