Opinion

• Opinion

  Shining a Light on Orthodox Safety Patrols in the Secular Press

  Boro Park’s Orthodox neighborhood patrol group, known informally as the shomrim — Hebrew for watch guards — has faced increased media scrutiny in the past few weeks over its role in the investigation of the killing of 8-year-old Leiby Kletzky on July 12. At issue is the fact that Kletzky’s disappearance was first reported to…

  By Naomi Zeveloff

  3 min read
• 
  Opinion

  Opening American Eyes to Israel’s Diversity

  American Jews would benefit from listening to Nigerian author Chimamanda Adichie. In a recent talk, Adichie explained that “it is impossible to engage properly with a place or a person without engaging with all of the stories of that place and that person.” Only when American Jewry exposes its youth to all the stories that…

  By Sarah Schonberg Aug 10, 2011 | 4 min read
• 
  Opinion

  Protest Movement Offers Hope for Israel’s Future

  “The People demand social justice.” That’s the slogan, the chant of more than 300,000 people in dozens of sites across Israel. And just maybe, the State of Israel is now entering the third chapter of its history as independent. During the first chapter, which extends from Israel’s founding in 1948, to 1977, 29 years of…

  By Leonard Fein Aug 9, 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 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

• Opinion

  Israel and Our Economy

  My latest editorial lamented how the debacle over the debt ceiling debate in Washington could be bad for the Jews. First, because we are Americans, and second, because a weakened America will lead to a weakened Israel. The Israel connection was, in my mind, a geopolitical one — that is, Israel depends on American military…

  By Jane Eisner Aug 8, 2011 | < 1 min read
• 
  Opinion

  In Darwin’s Footsteps

  In September 1835, when Charles Darwin sailed to the Galapagos Islands, he collected birds and other specimens that helped him explain the natural world and revolutionize scientific understanding. Darwin’s presence still haunts anyone who visits this desolately beautiful archipelago in an isolated spot of the Pacific Ocean, where the 13 distinct species of finches bear…

  By Jane Eisner Aug 8, 2011 | 2 min read
• 
  Opinion

  A Call for Social Justice on Tisha B’Av

  Israel is in the midst of an awakening, perhaps even a social revolution, but its official State Rabbinate and, indeed, virtually all religious officials, are silent. How can this be? Isn’t it the role of religious leaders to provide guidance? Three weeks ago a few people set up tents on Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv…

  By Rabbi Andrew Sacks Aug 8, 2011 | 2 min read
• 
  Opinion

  Examining the Palestinians’ Unilateral Bid for Statehood

  Give Them A Reason Not To Do It By Hussein Ibish The wisdom of the various plans for Palestinians to approach the United Nations in September with a statehood-oriented diplomatic initiative may be debated, but not the Palestinians’ right to make the approach. Israel was, in effect, created by the U.N. Partition Plan of 1947…

  Aug 5, 2011 | 7 min read
• 
  Opinion

  An American Coexistence

  There may be enduring enmity between Jews and Muslims in many parts of the world, but not, it seems, in America. The results of a new study by the Abu Dhabi Gallup Center examining the political, social and spiritual engagement of Muslim Americans found that those Muslims are generally happy, thriving and defiantly peaceful. That’s…

  Aug 5, 2011 | < 1 min read
• Opinion

  Comparing Bibi’s Israel to (Drum Roll) Monty Python’s ‘Cheese Shop’

  Israeli novelist-travel writer Yuval Ben-Ami weighs in at the +972 blog with a clever take on the snowballing Israeli economic Israel protest: Our situation as Israelis is currently comparable to that of the customer in Monty Python’s sketch, who walks into a cheese shop intent on buying cheese, only to discover that the shop is…

  By J.J. Goldberg Aug 4, 2011 | < 1 min read
• Opinion

  The Rightward Pull of Our Political System

  August being America’s silly season, a lot of folks seem to feel compelled to come up with the silliest ideas they can think of and pop them on the rest of us. Some of them are good for a laugh, some are infuriating and some can scare the living kishkes out of you. And some…

  By J.J. Goldberg Aug 4, 2011 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Was There a Context for Breivik’s Madness?

  His lawyer says he is insane, which is a perfectly plausible diagnosis of Anders Behring Breivik, the slaughterer of 77 Norwegians, most of them children, on July 22. The diagnosis is not only plausible; it is comforting. For if we are dealing here with a madman, then no further inquiry regarding motive need detain us….

  By Leonard Fein Aug 4, 2011 | 3 min read