Opinion

• Opinion

  Two Narratives for Two Peoples

  Many Jewish Israelis and their supporters have reacted with outrage to a New York Times Op-Ed on May 17 by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, particularly its invocation of the Palestinian historical narrative. Most troubling to them was Abbas’s description of how his family was “forced” to flee their home in what became Israel in 1948…

  By Hussein Ibish

  3 min read
• Opinion

  At Home in America

  May is Jewish American Heritage Month. Yeah, we didn’t know about it either. It’s a new date on the calendar, declared by President Bush in May 2006, to honor the 350-year history of Jewish contributions to American culture. Now Jews have a place in the firmament of celebrations of racial and ethnic diversity, alongside African…

  May 18, 2011 | 2 min read
• Letters

  No Trial Needed

  Deborah Lipstadt’s May 13 article “Eichmann’s Lessons for Bin Laden is interesting and informative, but her key analogy between Eichmann and bin Laden is weak. The circumstances which led to the ultimate fate of each are sufficiently different that her regret that bin Laden was never “shown the wonders of a democratic system of justice”…

  May 18, 2011 | < 1 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

• Letters

  A Healthy Cut

  Eli Ungar-Sargon’s claim (“Outlawing Circumcision: Good for the Jews?” May 20) that the health benefits of circumcision are only “purported” is sadly misinformed, and his analogy to mastectomy is just plain silly. Numerous studies by the World Health Organization, as well as independent studies published in the Lancet, Scientific American and the New England Journal…

  May 18, 2011 | < 1 min read
• Letters

  Archaeology’s Political Context

  The May 6 op-ed by Israel Finkelstein, “In the Eye of Jerusalem’s Archaeological Storm” underscores some problems and misconceptions surrounding the “City of David” in the Palestinian village of Silwan. Much of the site lies beneath village houses. It is this intermingling of ancient remains and modern homes that makes archaeology in the City of…

  May 18, 2011 | < 1 min read
• Opinion

  A Perp Walk

  The sordid tale of Dominque Strauss-Kahn — as of this writing, he is sitting in a New York jail and charged with sexual assault — is both a cautionary sign of progress and a warning of how difficult it is to convince even supposedly smart people that rape is a violent crime. The details of…

  May 18, 2011 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  A New Artist In Residence

  The Jewish press has a long and proud history of publishing cartoons that offer cutting commentary on our world and satirize the actions of the powerful — even its own. Abraham Cahan, the legendary editor of the Forward, was the subject of sometimes brutal depictions by the artists of his day, who in a few…

  May 18, 2011 | < 1 min read
• Opinion

  On Memorial Day, Reason to Remember

  Sixty-six years ago this month, the war in Europe ended. My father, a corporal in a combat engineer company that had fought from Normandy through the Bulge, remembers looking up at a squadron of Allied bombers dropping leaflets over recently liberated territory. “Nazis Quit!” they read. He still has one of those leaflets, laminated, hanging…

  By Michael Oren May 18, 2011 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  The Sacred Command of Income Redistribution

  On Thursday, May 5, the nation’s Catholic bishops issued a dramatic appeal to the members of the U.S. Senate, and it wasn’t about abortion. In a letter sent to all 100 members of that august chamber, the bishops urged the lawmakers to ensure that the upcoming federal budget doesn’t “rely on disproportionate cuts in essential…

  By J.J. Goldberg May 18, 2011 | 4 min read
• 
  Opinion

  Immigration Reform Is Our Jewish Responsibility

  President Obama recently announced his recommitment to achieving comprehensive immigration reform, a term that has become shorthand for legislation to fix the country’s broken immigration system. We — as Americans and as Jews — have a special responsibility to help him achieve this goal. We should praise the president’s message and this initiative, but we…

  By Gideon Aronoff May 17, 2011 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Strauss-Kahn, French Jewish Leader? IMF Head Does to African Maid What Global Finance Does to Africa

  Two thoughts about Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the International Monetary Fund and currently Riker’s Island’s most distinguished resident… Before his arrest, he was considered the clear front-runner in France’s upcoming presidential election, set for next April. Were he elected, he would have been the sixth Jewish leader of France. Despite its reputation for anti-Semitism,…

  By J.J. Goldberg May 17, 2011 | < 1 min read