Opinion

• Opinion

  Noam Sheizaf: Worrying About Israeli Democracy

  A few minutes after midnight on July 11, the night the Knesset passed its anti-boycott law, a hundred or so young Israelis gathered at Rabin Square in Tel Aviv. Since the square is being renovated, they clustered along one of its edges. Some of them improvised protest signs, facing them towards busy Ibn Gvirol Avenue….

  By Noam Sheizaf

  3 min read
• 
  Opinion

  Will Jews Defect to the GOP? This Clear Voice Says: No Way

  Here’s a question that will surely be asked incessantly until the next presidential election: Will American Jews desert the Democratic Party and throw some of their electoral weight and considerable financial clout to Republicans in 2012? Already, there have been claims and counter-claims, polls that seem to be no more than political advertisements and occasional…

  By Jane Eisner Jul 18, 2011 | < 1 min read
• 
  Opinion

  The Real Peoplehood Problem

  In a July 15 Forward op-ed, the Jewish Agency’s Misha Galperin sounded an urgent call for funding what he calls “the peoplehood agenda.” This agenda is meant to counter a perceived problem with the younger generation of American Jews. “Having been raised in a world of pluralism and tolerance,” Galperin wrote, “Jews younger than 45…

  By Daniel Septimus Jul 15, 2011 | 4 min read

Columnists View All

• Jay Michaelson What can really be done to prevent antisemitic attacks like Bondi Beach?

  

• Rob Eshman Australia shooting terrifies Jews worldwide — and strengthens the case for Israel

  

• Nora Berman Did crypto-Jews invent the modern tarot deck?

  

• Dan Perry The 3 responses to the Bondi Beach Hanukkah attack that could make Jews safer

  

• Emily Tamkin The fundamental miscalculation behind the GOP’s antisemitism crisis

  

The Latest

• Opinion

  What We Talk About When We Talk About Peoplehood

  I’ve received some interesting responses to an op-ed we ran recently in the paper. The piece was written by Misha Galperin, a top official at the Jewish Agency, who has overseen that quasi-governmental body’s shift from focusing on immigration to Israel, which was its mission for many decades, to something called “peoplehood” promotion. Galperin will…

  By Gal Beckerman Jul 15, 2011 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  ‘We Don’t Hunt’

  Here is a story I used to tell frequently, but haven’t for many years now. It is a true story I made up in 1980 or so. (A true story I made up? Yes. The compelling reason we love stories is that they do not have to have happened in order to be true.) It…

  By Leonard Fein Jul 14, 2011 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Two Revolutions and the Crises They Created

  If it feels as though we’re living through strange, frightening times, that’s because we are. The planet is experiencing a wrenching atmospheric change, what with biblical-scale storms and droughts, disappearing polar ice caps, rising oceans and endangered crop cycles. The nations, particularly in the 1.5 billion-strong Muslim world, are undergoing a collective nervous breakdown that…

  By J.J. Goldberg Jul 13, 2011 | 4 min read
• Letters

  Bialystok Redux

  In her letter responding to my June 3 critical review of her book, “Jewish Bialystok and its Diaspora,” Rebecca Kobrin argues that I have “fallen into a classical trap” of assessing her book not on its own merits, but on those of the book I wish she had written, which she argues would have been…

  Jul 13, 2011 | 2 min read
• Letters

  Debating Peoplehood

  In his July 5 op-ed, “Funding Peoplehood,” Misha Galperin stresses the need to invest in projects that strengthen Jewish identity. He also underscores how Jewish organizations must agree upon a clear, collective goal for advancing “the peoplehood agenda.” But what’s missing from this piece is a more expansive, values-based understanding of how Jewish peoplehood is…

  Jul 13, 2011 | < 1 min read
• 
  Opinion

  We Can’t Say This

  We could get in trouble for this. Not in New York City, where this editorial is being written, because legitimate comment is protected under the First Amendment. But our editorials, along with many other stories and columns in the Forward, also appear every Sunday in the English edition of the Haaretz newspaper in Israel. And…

  Jul 13, 2011 | 3 min read
• 
  Opinion

  A Terrible Pledge

  Will abortion affect voters’ decisions in 2012? Probably not. As The New York Times reports, less than 1 percent told its nationwide poll this year and last that abortion was the top problem facing the country. But that hasn’t stopped the Susan B. Anthony List from demanding fealty to their extreme anti-abortion views from all…

  Jul 13, 2011 | < 1 min read
• Opinion

  Read it Here!

  Alert readers of this edition of the Forward may have noticed something new. A slightly different size to the page. Crisper printing. More use of color. That’s because, with this edition, the Forward is producing its entire national press run of both the English and Yiddish papers on presses owned by the New York Daily…

  Jul 13, 2011 | < 1 min read