Opinion

• Opinion

  America Must Lead

  September 1, 2010: President Obama hosts the leaders of Israel, Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority in what is optimistically billed as the opening meeting of a year-long effort to finally arrive at a two-state solution for Mideast peace. Eight months later: Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak is deposed, King Abdullah of Jordan is clutching onto power,…

  3 min read
• Opinion

  Birth Pains

  Article II, Section I of the U.S. Constitution stipulates that the president must be a “natural born Citizen.” Scholars agree that the reason for this narrow exception to an otherwise broad description of eligibility was the well-founded fear, back in 1787, that a European prince or duke might immigrate to America and seek to install…

  Apr 28, 2011 | < 1 min read
• Opinion

  A Changing of the Guard

  One of the things I learned early on in journalism is to be good to your staff members, because you’ll never know when one of them will become your editor. Sure enough, that happened to me a few months after I arrived at the Forward in 2008, when the position of opinion editor opened up…

  By Jane Eisner Apr 28, 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

• Opinion

  Who Is To Say When It’s Okay To Cry ‘Fire’?

  Lately there’s been a lot of talk about the importance of restoring civility in community discourse. Here’s what I think: It totally sucks. It’s not that I’m against civility as such. Treating others with the same respect and kindness one wishes to receive in return is a nifty rule of thumb for any civilization. It…

  By J.J. Goldberg Apr 27, 2011 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Maximizing Animal Welfare in Kosher Slaughter

  There are legislative attempts around the world to require stunning of animals prior to religious slaughter. I do not get involved in the politics of this issue, but the following discussion may help clarify where there are problem areas. Over the past 30 years I have worked closely with the kosher industry to ensure that…

  By Temple Grandin Apr 27, 2011 | 4 min read
• Letters

  State Tuition Aid for Rabbinical Students Is A Matter of Fairness

  Regarding your April 15 editorial “A Cynical Giveaway,” what is cynical is the editorial’s tone and substance. The New York State Legislature’s decision to finally make state tuition assistance available to students in undergraduate rabbinical colleges, on a par with other undergraduate colleges, is more than long overdue; it is an expression of elemental equity….

  Apr 27, 2011 | 2 min read
• Letters

  A Closed-Minded Cartoon

  It is disturbing that as 2011’s Festival of Freedom began, a Passover cartoon in the Forward by Eli Valley slammed StandWithUs and Israel (“The Four Sons,” April 22). Drawing on the four sons of the Haggadah, the cartoon implied that, like the son who doesn’t know enough to ask, StandWithUs supports Israel blindly, never raising…

  Apr 27, 2011 | < 1 min read
• 
  Opinion

  In the Eye of Jerusalem’s Archaeological Storm

  Archaeological activity in Jerusalem has been sucked into a whirlwind of conflicting political agendas, and the site commonly referred to as “the City of David” is in the eye of the storm. At issue is a place of seminal importance for the Jewish people and indeed for anyone who cherishes the heritage of Western civilization….

  By Israel Finkelstein Apr 27, 2011 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Refusing To Let Go of Tomorrow

  With my eyes closed, just listening to the singing, it is hard to imagine that I am not, in fact, at a Kabbalat Shabbat service at B’nai Jeshurun, the Upper West Side’s deservedly fabled synagogue. But on opening my eyes and glancing out the open door, the illusion is revealed. I am in fact in…

  By Leonard Fein Apr 26, 2011 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Ending the Culture of Silence

  At the Passover Seder, we are supposed to ask questions about why things are done the way they are. Recently I asked some questions about the government-funded social service agency that serves my Jewish community in Brooklyn, the Crown Heights Jewish Community Council. Specifically, I questioned the policy that only allows men to vote for…

  By Eliyahu Federman Apr 24, 2011 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  At Some Point During Shabbes I Apparently Became an Enemy of the Torah

  Well, here it is, Saturday night. Some time around 8:30 I observe that Shabbes is over, so I crank up the old laptop to see what’s new and catch up with my Forward fan mail. My latest column on Palestinian statehood had some pretty lively back-and-forth going on as of Friday evening, and I’m eager…

  By J.J. Goldberg Apr 24, 2011 | 3 min read