Opinion

• Opinion

  Measuring the American Jewish Population Today

  Oy, the perils of random telephone dialing, one of the tried and true methods of accurately measuring population trends. Sometimes, you hear the most unexpected replies. “We have 50 women all married to the same Jew,” said the respondent who answered the phone in St. Petersburg, Fla., during a demographic survey. What?! “We had called…

  By Lillian Swanson

  2 min read
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  Opinion

  The Freedom Flotilla’s Real Agenda

  As a new international flotilla sets sail for Gaza, three recent headlines put the operation into context. In mid-June, Israel approved the delivery of $100 million of materials needed to build 1,200 new homes and 18 new schools in Gaza. Israel now transports some 50,000 tons of goods to Gaza biweekly. In addition to accelerating…

  By Alan Elsner Jun 28, 2011 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  The Futility of Barring Flotilla Coverage

  Never thought I would say this, but Benjamin Netanyahu just saved me from banging my head against the wall in desperate frustration. This morning brought news that Israel’s Government Press Office had warned media outlets that any foreign correspondent found aboard the flotilla about to set sail for Gaza would be “denied entry into the…

  By Gal Beckerman Jun 27, 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

  IDF Probe: Troops’ Hands Tied Controlling Rightist Jewish Extremism

  An internal Israeli army probe finds that Israeli security forces in the West Bank are hobbled in trying to control far-right Jewish lawbreakers by lack of cooperation among various branches of government working at cross-purposes. The probe is reported in Haaretz. The probe was ordered by the army’s Samaria Brigade following May 30 disturbances by…

  By J.J. Goldberg Jun 27, 2011 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  Israel’s Soviet Political Party

  Yisrael Beiteinu is widely understood to be the party of Russian Jewry, that population of nearly one million Jews who arrived in Israel after the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Twelve years since its founding, it has become the third largest party in the Knesset, on a radical anti-clerical and staunchly nationalist platform. Yisrael Beiteinu’s…

  By Liam Hoare Jun 27, 2011 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  Five Years Later, Everyone Is Behind Gilad Shalit

  At a time when it’s painfully difficult to find any sort of unanimity in the Jewish community with regard to Israel, the outpouring of concern from across the political spectrum for one sad-eyed serviceman provides a poignant place for common ground. On the fifth anniversary of his capture by Hamas everyone, it seems, is publicly…

  By Jane Eisner Jun 25, 2011 | < 1 min read
• Opinion

  Ouch: Israel Probes Matisyahu and Sarah Silverman for Signs of Jewish Life

  Shimon Peres apparently thought when he convened his Israeli Presidential Conference this week in Jerusalem that he could bring together several hundred cutting-edge thinkers and doers in the fields of technology, economics, international relations and Jewish thought to interact, share, clash and perhaps create something new, with a few thousand bright people sitting on the…

  By J.J. Goldberg Jun 24, 2011 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Will the Real Daniel Gordis Please Stand Up?

  Rabbi Daniel Gordis, I’m told, is perhaps the single most popular speaker on Israel to American Jewish audiences. He moved to Israel in 1998, after serving as founding dean of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, and in Jerusalem he serves as senior vice president of the…

  By Leonard Fein Jun 23, 2011 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  The Conversion Debate Gets Fiery in Jerusalem

  The Israeli Presidential Conference, Shimon Peres’s vanity international blabfest, continues today with a series of panel discussions on the woes of the global economy and the future of the Jewish people. I don’t think we’ve solved the world’s economic problems, but there have been a few bombshells dropped into the field of Jewish identity. The…

  By J.J. Goldberg Jun 23, 2011 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Peres’s Big Ideas, Tzipi Livni’s Raw Politics, Sarah Silverman’s Low Humor

  Shimon Peres likes to bill his Israeli Presidential Conference, the star-studded international talkfest that he’s convening in Jerusalem this week for the third time (the previous ones were in 2008 and 2009) as a Davos-style gathering of great minds to consider the great issues of the day. And it is that, in part. But like…

  By J.J. Goldberg Jun 23, 2011 | 2 min read
• Letters

  Strengthening Jewish Education

  Debra Nussbaum Cohen’s June 24 article (“Major Effort To Promote Day Schools Shows Mixed Results”) captured the vital importance of day schools and the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education’s critical role in strengthening them as a major community asset. The business of Jewish day schools is not just a numbers game. Rather, it’s about…

  Jun 22, 2011 | 2 min read