Opinion

• Opinion

  Peoplehood, Debated

  We’ve gotten a lot of response to Daniel Septimus’ op-ed, taking on Misha Galperin and his “peoplehood agenda.” Because there seems to be interest in this debate — one that has high stakes for, at the very least, the future of the Jewish Agency if not the Jewish community as a whole — I’ve just…

  By Gal Beckerman

  < 1 min read
• Opinion

  Continuing a Peoplehood Debate

  This op-ed is a response to a previous article by Daniel Septimus, which can be found here. I am delighted that my op-ed has spurred a conversation about an issue that is critical to modern Jewish life. What is the nature of Jewish peoplehood? If it is about connection among Jews, but has no additional…

  By Misha Galperin Jul 25, 2011 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Does Oslo Terror Indict Rightists? Did Unabomber Indict Al Gore?

  Ross Douthat, conservative-in-residence on the New York Times’ Op-Ed, makes an important cautionary point in his Sunday July 24 column, “A Right-Wing Monster,” about the surge of progressive comment citing the Norway massacre as an indictment of the New Right of Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy (and the House Republicans and Yisrael Beiteinu, I might add)…

  By J.J. Goldberg Jul 25, 2011 | 2 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

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  Opinion

  Eric Alterman: Yale Acted Correctly in Axing Anti-Semitism Initiative

  Yale University’s decision to shutter its Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism and replace it with the Yale Program for the Study of Antisemitism has inspired considerable controversy, much of it highly acrimonious. On the one hand, this is surprising. YIISA was a tiny institute without much of a profile at Yale, much less…

  By Eric Alterman Jul 25, 2011 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Israelis Debate on the Web: Did Norway Get What It Deserved?

  The Norway massacre has touched off a nasty war of words on the Israeli Internet over the meaning of the event and its implications for Israel. And I do mean nasty: Judging by the comments sections on the main Hebrew websites, the main questions under debate seem to be whether Norwegians deserve any sympathy from…

  By J.J. Goldberg Jul 24, 2011 | 6 min read
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  Opinion

  New Poll: Israel Is Not the Deciding Factor

  It is polling season in the Jewish world and after Gallup’s poll and the controversial Dick Morris and the just as controversial McLaughlin and Caddell surveys it is now J Street’s turn to weigh in. The group released yesterday its own national survey of American Jews which reinforces the main findings of the Gallup poll…

  By Nathan Guttman Jul 22, 2011 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  A Conditional Sanctuary

  We’re talking about a tiny number of immigrants here, a few thousand at most, all of them very, very poor, who fled persecution and affliction and were welcomed to America as refugees and assylees. Many are quite old, or else severely disabled — like Mr. B., a 41-year-old Jewish man, who came to the United…

  Jul 22, 2011 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  Looking for My Birthright in All the Wrong Places

  Birthright was not going to get me. I had heard about the brainwashing propaganda party that takes place on these 10-day free trips to Israel. I was well aware of Birthright’s intent, and pretty darn sure that it couldn’t possibly work on me. I was there to see the land, learn about the culture and…

  By Molly Tolsky Jul 22, 2011 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  How Israel Harms Itself When It Legitimizes The Delegitimizers

  One of the people I follow these days on Twitter is Danny Ayalon. He’s the deputy foreign minister of Israel but it’s hard to tell from his Twitter feed that he does anything besides man the virtual barricades of the state. Hardly an hour goes by when Ayalon doesn’t end up engaging in tweet-to-tweet combat…

  By Gal Beckerman Jul 22, 2011 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Demography as Destiny: Israel’s Growing Right Shapes Law, Military

  The increasingly progressive Atlantic Monthly correspondent and former Forward staffer Jeffrey Goldberg (for the last time, no, we’re not the same person) posted a link on his blog Tuesday to an online essay — which he called “hard to disagree with” — by senior research fellow Hussein Ibish of the American Task Force on Palestine….

  By J.J. Goldberg Jul 21, 2011 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Liberate the Letter, Pt 2

  On October 26, 1960, just days before Election Day, the two candidates for president issued statements commemorating the 170th anniversary of George Washington’s letter on religious pluralism to the Jews of Newport, R.I. The Republican, Vice President Richard Nixon, delivered his remarks in person, quoting from the letter’s definition of “toleration” and noting with pride…

  By Jane Eisner Jul 21, 2011 | 3 min read