Opinion

• Opinion

  When History Is Closed for Debate

  The spirit of the holiday season has just swept across the French National Assembly. On December 22, the nation’s representatives — or, more accurately, the handful in attendance — passed a bill that would criminalize the denial of the Turkish massacre of the Armenians in 1915. It was as much a gift to the government…

  By Robert Zaretsky

  3 min read
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  Opinion

  Monitoring the Monitors

  The Syrian uprising, now in its ninth month, has recently experienced some of the most ruthless and deadly violence on the part of Bashar al-Assad’s government. The stronghold city of Homs, a center of the revolt, is a war zone. Images from the city show bodies lying on the sidewalks and tanks rolling down the…

  Dec 30, 2011 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  Recognition of Suffering, Far Too Late

  Israel is definitely making progress on the subject of the Armenian genocide. In late December, during the Knesset’s first ever open-door debate on the issue, nobody was reported to have questioned whether the deliberate killing of 1.5 million Armenians in 1915-’16 should be called a genocide, nor whether the Ottoman Empire was the guilty party,…

  By Larry Derfner Dec 30, 2011 | 3 min read

Columnists View All

• Alyssa Katz Class assignment: Get to know your murdered Jewish neighbors

  

• Rob Eshman ‘Remember the Liberty’ has become code for ‘Israel Is Evil’ 

  

• Dan Perry A new proposal to radically destabilize Israel

  

• Emily Tamkin Outrage over Nicholas Kristof’s op-ed on sexual assault of Palestinians is missing the point

  

• Jay Michaelson When it comes to Israel/Palestine, everyone is sure that everyone else is a bigot

  

The Latest

• Opinion

  Yes, Virginia, Hanukkah Has a Correct Spelling

  “Jewish Tech” blogger Rabbi Jason Miller asks a useful and important question in his Jewish Week column this week, namely: How do you spell Hanukkah? Unfortunately, he starts off with an incorrect premise, then looks for an answer in the wrong place and leads his readers on a bit of a goose chase. He ends…

  By J.J. Goldberg Dec 30, 2011 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Poor Bibi: New Spy Chief Downplays Iran Threat

  Yet another embarrassment to Israel’s prime minister in his effort to drum up support for a military attack on Iran: Haaretz reports that the newly appointed director of the Mossad intelligence agency, Tamir Pardo, downplayed the severity of the Iranian nuclear project, telling a closed gathering of senior Israeli diplomats that an Iranian nuclear weapon…

  By J.J. Goldberg Dec 29, 2011 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  Day Schools Stuck in Neutral

  The month of December brought some bad news for Jewish day school advocates. According to the Avi Chai Foundation, which tracks these things, day school enrollment saw a “modest decline” of about 1.4% in the 2011-12 school year, compared with the year before. The sharpest decline was reported among the Solomon Schechter schools of Conservative…

  By J.J. Goldberg Dec 29, 2011 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Scoops: Ron Paul, Zionist; Scarlett’s Jewish Literacy

  Haaretz’s Chemi Shalev scores an interview (via email) with Ron Paul, who seems to think he’s the only true Zionist in the race. How’s that? Well, Paul says, Two of the tenets of a true Zionist are “self-determination” and “self-reliance.” I do not believe we should be Israel’s master but, rather, her friend. We should…

  By J.J. Goldberg Dec 29, 2011 | < 1 min read
• Letters

  Chrismukkah Redux

  By providing Jordana Horn space to defend her controversial Kveller article about why Jews shouldn’t celebrate Christmas (“I Am the Grinch Who Stole Chrismukkah,” December 30), you’ve enabled her to repeat its offenses. In the original piece she wrote that interfaith families who celebrate both holidays “without thinking about it…should probably just celebrate Christmas and…

  Dec 28, 2011 | < 1 min read
• Letters

  Querying Kushner

  In the Forward’s December 9 profile of Tony Kushner, he presents an alternative reality in expounding upon the “disgusting” circumstance of persons using “money to leverage power over non-profit institutions.” He is referring to my role as trustee at the City University of New York and to the attempt I made to prevent him from…

  Dec 28, 2011 | 2 min read
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  Opinion

  Time To Reach Out to Hamas

  It is easy to despair of diplomacy. The Mideast peace process is moribund, homegrown grassroots forces sweep the region and topple familiar old allies, America retreats from Iraq leaving the fires it ignited still aflame, and even the region’s weakest and most indulged leaders, Mahmoud Abbas and Benjamin Netanyahu, turn their backs on compromise, defying…

  By Nicolas Pelham Dec 28, 2011 | 5 min read
• Opinion

  Conflating Anti-Semitism and Anti-Zionism

  A brief addendum to Gal’s earlier post on Ron Paul. The New York Times published a thorough piece this weekend examining Paul’s much-discussed relationship with the racist fringe of the libertarian spectrum. The story, which reported that Paul doesn’t agree with his most extreme followers but that he won’t reject their support, is well worth…

  By Josh Nathan-Kazis Dec 27, 2011 | 2 min read