Opinion

• Letters

  ‘Should We Welcome?’ Is the Wrong Question

  Your February 4 editorial “Who Isn’t a Jew?” rightly identified the discrepancy between the Jewish community’s embrace of Gabrielle Giffords as a Jew and its ongoing discomfort welcoming intermarried and patrilineal Jews. But the editorial ends by suggesting that there is still a need to disprove the notion that “opening the tent too wide will…

  2 min read
• Letters

  Glenn Beck vs. the Biblical Prophets

  Deborah Lipstadt is wrong to suggest any equivalence between the left and the right when it comes to using Nazi analogies to attack political opponents (“Glenn Beck Isn’t the Only Offender,” February 11). The leftists Lipstadt cites as using Nazi comparisons do not have a major media outlet at their every beck (pun intended) and…

  Mar 9, 2011 | < 1 min read
• Opinion

  When Liberals Turn Their Backs on Labor, America Loses

  That empty, hollow sound you hear is the sound of the American Jewish community ignoring the big showdown in Wisconsin. Which is odd, if you think about it. Normally, America’s most divisive political fights become divisive Jewish fights more or less automatically. Whether it’s about the Middle East, school prayer or abortion, we’re in the…

  By J.J. Goldberg Mar 9, 2011 | 4 min read

Columnists View All

• Jodi Rudoren This is my last column as editor of the Forward

  

• Jay Michaelson I supported Israel’s actions in Gaza in October 2023 — not anymore

  

• Rob Eshman How anti-Israel rhetoric led to the killing of two in Washington, D.C. 

  

• Nora Berman How the Oct. 7 aftermath splintered the New York Dyke March

  

• Dan Perry It looks like Israel totally underestimated Trump

  

• Emily Tamkin This week proved it: Trump’s approach to antisemitism at Columbia is horribly ineffective

  

The Latest

• Opinion

  Nice Country for Camping, Not for Fracking

  Years ago, I used to lie in my bed at Camp Tel Yehudah and listen to the water flowing in the Delaware River just behind my cabin. Today, I am reminded of my camping days as I worry about the natural gas rush that threatens to pollute the water supplies of 15 million people who…

  By Mirele B. Goldsmith Mar 9, 2011 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Looking at Law Through Purim’s Prism

  Sometimes great reservoirs of meaning reside in a single word. There is an Aramaic word that appears every once in a great while in the Hebrew Bible. It appears once in Deuteronomy, here and there in the Book of Daniel — and no fewer than 12 times in the Scroll of Esther, or the Purim…

  By David Fohrman Mar 9, 2011 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Seizing New Middle East Opportunities

  The Egyptian uprising for freedom has appropriately received an enthusiastic response from citizens of democratic countries around the world. Of course, there are still potential pitfalls on Egypt’s path to democracy. Many worry that the military will, in the name of stability, refuse to allow needed political reforms or that the Muslim Brotherhood will hijack…

  By Abraham Foxman Mar 9, 2011 | 3 min read
• 
  Opinion

  Benedict’s ‘Jesus’ and the Jews

  The second volume of Pope Benedict XVI’s “Jesus of Nazareth” has already created a splash. Even before the book’s release, numerous Jewish leaders lavished effusive praise on Benedict for the volume’s exculpation of the Jews in Jesus’ crucifixion. But is anything new here? Has Benedict broken any ground regarding how Catholics need to understand their…

  By Eugene Korn Mar 9, 2011 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  What Obama Should Say to Israelis

  There’s a growing clamor for President Obama to visit Israel (and, presumably, once in Jerusalem, Ramallah as well). But there’s a bit of a problem in imagining such a visit: What would the president say? He would likely deliver a very elegant speech; that’s one of his great skills. But beyond reassuring the Israelis of…

  By Leonard Fein Mar 8, 2011 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Sesame Hamentashn: Burt & Arnie, the Purimman’s Friends

  Bert and Ernie, as portrayed by Burt (Visotzky) and Arnie (Eisen), have fun arguing over who’s got the bigger Hamentash. Coincidentally or no, one is an ordained rabbi, former PBS star, friend of Bill Moyers and author of an unlikely hot-selling 1997 re-examination of Genesis. The other is a professor of the sociology of religion,…

  By J.J. Goldberg Mar 7, 2011 | < 1 min read
• Opinion

  Must-See TV: Hitler Learns About Scott Walker’s Fake Koch Brothers Crank Call

  In this rare piece of footage, Adolf Hitler is informed about the fake Koch brothers crank call to Scott Walker.

  By J.J. Goldberg Mar 7, 2011 | < 1 min read
• Opinion

  Obama Backs the Rebels. No He Doesn’t. The Islamists Are Coming. No They’re Not. (Forget It, Jake, This Chinatown)

  I’m getting a headache trying to figure out whether or not to be mad at President Obama for his position on Libya and the Middle East’s big democratic moment. The biggest problem is that I can’t figure out what his position is. The second problem is that every time I think I’ve figured out where…

  By J.J. Goldberg Mar 6, 2011 | 4 min read