Opinion

• Opinion

  What Is Really Happening in New Square?

  Eighteen years ago, as a Hasidic student at the yeshiva of New Square, I found myself swept up one morning in the frenzy of a mob. I, along with around two dozen young men, ransacked the private dormitory room of a fellow student. We broke open the door, smashed the lock on the bedside cabinet,…

  By Shulem Deen

  4 min read
• Opinion

  Bank of Israel Governor Stan Fischer Mulls IMF Run

  The Wall Street Journal reports that Stanley Fischer, governor of the Bank of Israel, is examining a formal bid to head the International Monetary Fund, said an official familiar with his thinking, and figures he has an outside shot at the job if there is a deadlock in the voting. Mr. Fischer, a former deputy…

  By J.J. Goldberg May 27, 2011 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Mofaz Calls Bibi Out on Ynet (Hebrew Only — Why Isn’t It Translated…?)

  Shaul Mofaz, the chairman of the Knesset foreign affairs and defense committee, wrote an op-ed essay on the Ynet Hebrew website on Wednesday May 25, savagely summing up Netanyahu’s American visit. Strangely, it doesn’t appear on the English site. In fact, it’s not so strange—the English site’s opinion section carries mostly right-wing material (Obama vs….

  By J.J. Goldberg May 27, 2011 | 3 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

  As Bibi Slouches Toward September

  Benjamin Netanyahu had ample reason to congratulate himself on a job well done as he headed home from his five-day visit to Washington, D.C. He received thunderous hero’s welcomes from Congress and the pro-Israel lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which greeted him with its biggest-ever display of muscle. All this will serve him…

  By J.J. Goldberg May 25, 2011 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Is it 1948 or 1967?

  One way to understand the Israel/Palestine impasse: Either it is 1947/8, or it is 1967. If it is 1947/48, the argument is about narratives and refugees; if it is 1967, the argument is about borders and an end to the conflict. In 1947, the United Nations endorsed a two-state solution to the Palestine question. In…

  By Leonard Fein May 25, 2011 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Don’t Make Us Choose

  When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a joint meeting of Congress May 24, his first audience was the assembly of federal lawmakers and other government dignitaries seated before him. His second audience was President Obama, who was off hobnobbing with the Queen of England, but who only days earlier had set out his vision for…

  May 25, 2011 | 4 min read
• 
  Opinion

  What Is the Wording?

  This fall, the Palestine Liberation Organization will ask the 192 member states of the United Nations to declare an independent state of Palestine. In my view, this is a bad idea; if I could, I would stop it. But since the peace process (apparently) is dead and it is unlikely that anything will occur to…

  By Kathleen Peratis May 25, 2011 | 3 min read
• 
  Opinion

  The France That Hasn’t Shown Its Face to Dominique Strauss-Kahn

  The case of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former director of the IMF and leading Socialist politician now accused of sexual assault, has left the French public shocked and scandalized in many different ways. But curiously, there is one response that we have not seen: anti-Semitism. Curious, because France’s long history with its Jews has often been troubled…

  By Robert Zaretsky May 23, 2011 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  The Generals Vs. the Lobbyists and the Psychology of AIPAC

  The press attention at AIPAC goes to the big speeches by prime ministers, superstar lawmakers and the occasional president. Most of the action, though, is in the less ballyhooed small-group workshops and “breakout” sessions, dozens at a time, where groups of delegates listen to experts expound on topics ranging from effective lobbying and working with…

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

  The Poverty of Riches

  In April, we learned that the poorest municipality in the country by income is Kiryas Joel, the Satmar Hasidic hamlet in Orange County, New York. To anyone who knows the community, this was no surprise. The families living there are younger, larger and more likely to be led by a full-time student of Torah who…

  By Noam Neusner May 23, 2011 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Abe Gets Hate Mail, Bibi’s 3 Whoppers and an Optimistic (Yes!) Reading of the Situation

  Barack and Bibi: An Optimistic Reading According to a very reliable source, Abraham Foxman got an e-mail the other day, lamenting the fact that Hitler didn’t get him, apparently because of the Anti-Defamation League’s statement praising President Obama’s Middle East speech. I didn’t call for confirmation because I didn’t want Abe to ask me not…

  By J.J. Goldberg May 22, 2011 | 5 min read