Opinion

• Opinion

  Living With the Church-State Tension

  Few topics are as fraught and complicated, or as tempting to oversimplify, as the encounter between religion and state. Take Israel. The balance of religion and state seems to be particularly imperiled for a variety of cultural and political reasons. Some Israelis think the problem has to do with an increase in religious commitment itself….

  By Perry Dane

  4 min read
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  Opinion

  Israelis Heart Iranians, and Vice Versa

  If you weren’t on Facebook this weekend, then you probably missed a huge love fest going on between Israelis and Iranians. As would be expected, the governments of the two countries were not proclaiming their undying devotion to one another. Rather, it was ordinary Israeli and Iranian citizens who were expressing mutual admiration and a…

  By Renee Ghert-Zand Mar 19, 2012 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  Abusing Tikkun Olam

  Google “tikkun olam” together with “same-sex marriage,” “global warming” or “abortion,” and you’ll get tens of thousands of hits. Yet in these many, many instances, “tikkun olam” is being invoked by Jewish groups or Jews in two ways that disconnect it from its true meaning. First, the original and entire phrase is “tikkun olam b’malchut…

  By Joel Alperson Mar 19, 2012 | 3 min read

Columnists View All

• Alyssa Katz What I learned at a Holocaust survivors’ Purim party

  

• Rob Eshman Trump is backed into a corner on Iran. Get ready for him to start blaming Jews

  

• Dan Perry Viktor Orbán may fall. Netanyahu should be next

  

• Emily Tamkin Hungary is poised to topple an authoritarian leader. American Jews have something to learn

  

• Jay Michaelson Passover’s 4 cups of meaning

  

The Latest

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  Opinion

  Demjanjuk’s Prosecution Set Precedent

  John Demjanjuk, the retired Cleveland autoworker who was convicted by a German court in May 2011 of being a Nazi death camp guard, died on March 16. His death ends one of the most convoluted and controversial cases in judicial history. The case began 35 years ago, when Israel requested Demjanjuk’s extradition in order to…

  By Michael Scharf Mar 19, 2012 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Arrival of the ‘New American Haggadah’

  ‘Here I am, prepared and ardent [as in hineni muchan umzuman], allied and present, ready to perform the mitzvah of the first cup, the enactment of salvation’s promise…. You are blessed, Lord God-of-us, King of the Cosmos [eloheinu melech ha’olam], Maker of the fruit of the vine.” That is what Nathan Englander’s fresh, inventive, liberal…

  By Leonard Fein Mar 18, 2012 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Goldman Rebel Is Latest Outspoken S. African Jew

  Myriad hypotheses have been floated already about what compelled Goldman Sachs executive director Greg Smith to write the New York Times op-ed that shot around the globe this week. Smith’s broadside against Goldman’s “toxic and destructive” culture has been depicted as the ranting of a disgruntled employee, the “objection of the underclass of younger bankers…

  By Paul Berger Mar 17, 2012 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  Judea Pearl Wins ‘Nobel Prize in Computing’

  Judea Pearl, father of the slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, has been named winner of what is considered the “Nobel Prize in Computing,” a prestigious honor that also carries a $250,000 award. The Association for Computing Machinery announced Thursday it would give its 2011 ACM A.M. Turing Award to Pearl, a professor at…

  By Lillian Swanson Mar 16, 2012 | < 1 min read
• Opinion

  Jon Stewart Rips Defund of UNESCO Over P.A. Bid

  Jon Stewart treads where others don’t dare: skewering America’s decision to defund UNESCO for recognizing Palestine. And this was no mere tweak: Stewart skipped his interview segment last night to air a special, two-part “investigation” by John Oliver on the UNESCO flap. Oliver actually traveled to Gabon in West Africa (not a fake blue-screen standup),…

  By J.J. Goldberg Mar 16, 2012 | < 1 min read
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  Opinion

  A Fine Line on Title VI

  Do Jewish students deserve the same federal civil rights protections as African Americans, women and the disabled in the nation’s schools and universities? The official answer now is in the affirmative, and in principle, that seems only just and fair. After years of lobbying, Jewish groups led by the Zionist Organization of America managed to…

  Mar 16, 2012 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  Epidemic of Dysfunction Dogs Netanyahu

  The pioneering 19th century Yiddish novelist Mendele Mocher-Sefarim (Mendele the Book-Peddler) was best known for lovable characters like “Fishke the Lame” and poor “Benjamin the Third,” but he started his career writing biting satires about corrupt Jewish community leaders. It’s hard to know which genre he’d be writing if he lived in Israel today. The…

  By J.J. Goldberg Mar 16, 2012 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  The Muslim ‘Other’

  A survey by the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling, released the morning of the Mississippi and Alabama primaries, found that about half of the Republicans queried believe that President Obama is a Muslim. We use the word “believe” here purposely, because this is indeed a matter of belief, not fact. The fact is he’s a…

  Mar 15, 2012 | < 1 min read