Opinion

• Opinion

  Pick Your Peril

  Passover is best known as the festival of freedom, but it has a second name that resonates just as deeply: the festival of spring. The two are not unrelated. Spring, the season of renewal, brings its own promise of freedom. It brings warmth and new growth, freeing us from the hardships of winter. More important,…

  2 min read
• Opinion

  The Real and the Virtual

  For those who are still skeptical of the power of the “virtual” world — and not just its power to mobilize people, but its power to change how we see and think, who we are — there’s this. For the more than 2,000 participants in this audacious experience, the line between the virtual and the…

  By Leonard Fein Apr 20, 2011 | 4 min read
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  Opinion

  As the Palestinians Pursue Statehood, Israel Won’t Take ‘Yes’ for an Answer

  This is a bit complicated, but it’s very important, so try and keep up. We’ll take questions afterward. Israel faces a grave diplomatic crisis this fall. The Palestinians are planning to demand recognition from the United Nations General Assembly as a sovereign state within the 1949 armistice line or Green Line, on the territory governed…

  By J.J. Goldberg Apr 20, 2011 | 4 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

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  Opinion

  Stand Firm Against Unilateral Statehood Push

  A Palestinian unilateral declaration of statehood, which could occur as soon as September, is rapidly becoming a source of profound Israeli anxiety. Israel clearly fears a situation in which, following a United Nations General Assembly resolution recognizing a Palestinian state, it would find itself accused daily of violating the rights of a fellow U.N. member…

  By Meyrav Wurmser Apr 20, 2011 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Our Divisive Discourse

  “You say you’re pro-Israel, but you’re really not.” These words may sound reminiscent of the recent Knesset hearing about J Street. But they’re from an entirely different source: a high school junior we will call “Isaac.” Long before the Knesset questioned J Street’s activities, Isaac and his 11th-grade classmates were debating what it means to…

  By Sivan Zakai Apr 20, 2011 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Our Skewed Priorities

  “Can someone name a minority group in Israel?” I once asked a class of high school seniors at a well-known Jewish day school. The students — the apple of the Jewish community’s eye — suddenly became fixated upon the floor tiles as they studiously avoided eye contact with me. Finally, one girl slowly raised her…

  By David Dabscheck Apr 20, 2011 | 3 min read
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  Opinion

  France’s Ban, and Israel’s Burka Problem

  Israel, and particularly its rabbis, could learn from France’s ban on face veils. With this new law France has made a powerful statement about the level of integration it expects from Muslim citizens, and about the status of women in its society. Israel’s religious sector needs to make similar statements. The target would not be…

  By Miriam Shaviv Apr 18, 2011 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  A Season for Freedom

  One of the most remarkable features of the celebration of Passover is how decentralized it is. The Seder takes place in the home, away from the watchful eyes of rabbis or other religious authorities; it can be personal and fluid, quick or lengthy, in whatever language suits the leaders and guests. The Haggadah’s requirements are…

  Apr 13, 2011 | 3 min read
• Letters

  URJ’s New Leader Should Focus on Judaism, Not Politics

  Rabbi Richard Jacobs, who has been tapped to be the next leader of the Union for Reform Judaism, is calling for a “new path” for the movement (“Once a Critic, New Leader of Reform Judaism Promises Change,” April 1). One change that would be particularly welcome would be to eliminate the URJ’s funding of the…

  Apr 13, 2011 | < 1 min read
• Letters

  What Would Jesus Do, If He Were Israeli?

  I am writing to elaborate on a point I made in the article the Forward recently published about me, and my book “Jerusalem, Jerusalem” (“A Catholic Thinker Touched by Jerusalem and Its Mystical and Earthly Power,” April 1). In emphasizing the important problem that Christians find it difficult to think of Jesus as a Jew,…

  Apr 13, 2011 | < 1 min read
• Letters

  The Jewish God Is a King, but Not a Rebel

  Allison Yarrow concludes her review of my novel, “The Gospel of Anarchy,” by citing my quotation of G.K. Chesterton saying that “Christianity alone has felt that God… must have been a rebel as well as a king” (“Wanted: A Gospel Worth Following,” March 11). Yarrow counters that “Christianity claiming a monopoly on the concept of…

  Apr 13, 2011 | < 1 min read