Opinion

• Opinion

  From the Civil War to Our Seders, a Song of Redemption

  At every Seder I can remember, our family has sung “Go Down Moses” (“Go down, Moses/Way down in Egypt’s land/Tell ol’ Pharaoh/Let my people go”). As a child I loved it because it was a song in English, and I did not yet know Hebrew. (Most of the fun tunes were in Hebrew.) As an…

  By Aurora Mendelsohn

  3 min read
• Opinion

  How Big a Tent?

  Drawing boundaries, whether for congressional districts after the decennial census, for nations (Israel/Palestine, for example) or to determine who belongs “within the tent” of Jewish life, is a complicated and often nasty business. At the moment, considerable Jewish energy is being invested on all sides of this last, the tent question. So, for example, a…

  By Leonard Fein Mar 31, 2011 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  The Pragmatic President

  “Speaker John Boehner complained that Obama ordered the U.S. military into combat in Libya without clearly defining the mission to the American people and Congress,” joked Jay Leno. “See, apparently you’re only allowed to do that when invading Iraq.” Well, inconsistency does seem to be the hallmark of governance, especially in complicated times. A waffler…

  Mar 30, 2011 | 3 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

  This ‘Arab Spring,’ Only Uncertainty Blooms

  Observers are increasingly using the term “Arab spring” to describe the tsunami of revolution, revolt, state collapse and armed intervention that is sweeping the Arab world. The term implies that a better reality, a rebirth, is about to burst forth from the Arab world. Yet it is not obvious or certain that we are actually…

  By Yossi Alpher Mar 30, 2011 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  The Bum Rap Against Independent Minyanim

  Recent months have seen a wave of opinion pieces and statements — in these pages and elsewhere — that have been critical of independent minyanim. Minyanim are portrayed as too independent and not independent enough, and their participants are painted as both selfish ingrates who take from the community without giving anything back and energetic…

  By Ben Dreyfus Mar 30, 2011 | 3 min read
• 
  Opinion

  LGBT Activists Should Know Friends From Foes

  Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities in the Muslim world face lethal homophobia. Yet too many LGBT progressives in the West — Jews and non-Jews alike — focus their ire on Israel, branding it a pariah state and placing themselves on the wrong side of history. Israel is the only — with a capital “O”…

  By Benjamin Weinthal and Stuart Appelbaum Mar 30, 2011 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  We Have a Problem, but Rick Jacobs Isn’t It

  Thirty-four years ago, when Menachem Begin first led the Likud to power in Israel, it was Rabbi Alexander Schindler, the leader of Reform Judaism, who reached out to embrace him. In doing so, Schindler averted a crisis in relations between America’s liberal-leaning Jewish community and an Israel where the right was newly ascendant. This would…

  By J.J. Goldberg Mar 30, 2011 | 4 min read
• Letters

  A Welcome Silence

  In contrast to many other Jewish publications, the Forward highlighted the struggle for public workers’ rights and dignity in Wisconsin. Your front-page article noted that 16 rabbis have publicly supported the unions (“In Madison, Only Some Jewish Voices Are Heard,” March 18). The Shabbat service conducted for 150 participants by four rabbis in the State…

  Mar 30, 2011 | < 1 min read
• Letters

  The Holocaust’s Untold Chapter

  The revelations about sexual violence against women during the Holocaust presented by scholars Sonja Hedgepeth and Rochelle Saidel are most important (“Struggling To Be Heard,” March 25). It is understandable that stories like this are often never broached. How can a person overcome such personal shame to disclose such things to one’s own children? For…

  Mar 30, 2011 | < 1 min read
• Letters

  An Inapt, and Dangerous, Analogy

  Letty Cottin Pogrebin is entitled to her criticism of Israel and her horror at the conditions in Hebron (“The ‘A-Word’ in Hebron,” April 1). She is not entitled, however, to historically inaccurate analogies that severely damage the reputation of the state both of us love. Apartheid was a legal form of racial segregation enacted by…

  Mar 30, 2011 | < 1 min read
• Opinion

  Wacky Laws: No Food Stamps for Strikers, No ‘Streams’ in Judaism

  The liberal blogosphere is all worked up about a budget bill proposed by the Study Group, made up of conservative Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives, that appears to deny food stamps to any family with a single adult member who goes on strike. The draconian measure was first brought to light by ThinkProgress.com…

  By J.J. Goldberg Mar 28, 2011 | 2 min read