Opinion

• Opinion

  A Worrisome Birthday for a Warming World

  If I seem a little anxious lately, it’s because I’m having trouble picking out a birthday gift. I get caught every year around this time, first thinking about the upcoming New Year observance and the perennial thrill of hearing the call of the shofar, and then remembering the words that follow it: Hayom harat olam…

  By J.J. Goldberg

  3 min read
• Opinion

  Peretz-Wieseltier Smackdown! The Islam Menace! (Also, Yours Truly on NPR, Sunday)

  (My NPR details: ‘On the Media,’ Sunday Sept. 5. In NYC, 10 am on 93.9 FM, 3 pm on 820 AM. Elsewhere, check the show’s schedule.) (Update: here is the broadcast, streaming audio plus transcript.) On to tachlis: The New Republic has a particularly seething confrontation on its website between the editor in chief, Martin…

  By J.J. Goldberg Sep 5, 2010 | 5 min read
• 
  Opinion

  When Would Israel Attack Iran?

  The prospect of Israel attacking Iran’s nuclear infrastructure is very much in the news. Jeffrey Goldberg recently published a controversial article in The Atlantic citing what he called a “consensus” view among current and former Israeli decision makers that “there is a better than 50 percent chance that Israel will launch a strike by next…

  By Yossi Alpher Sep 1, 2010 | 3 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 I have the answer to Jon Stewart’s toughest question about Israel

  

• Nora Berman ‘Eddington’ is full of conspiracy theories but it’s not about Jews. Or is it?

  

• Dan Perry A US official just made history in the West Bank — did he imperil prospects for peace?

  

• Emily Tamkin Is starvation in Gaza really Israel’s fault? The facts are clear

  

The Latest

• Opinion

  Abraham and Sons

  It’s no secret that services on the first day of Rosh Hashanah are much better attended than those on its second day. But what the second day of the Jewish New Year lacks in attendance, it makes up for in narrative drama. In synagogue that day, we read Genesis 22, which recounts the binding of…

  By Sid Schwarz Sep 1, 2010 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Conversion Crisis or Marriage Problem? — An Exchange

  This summer, Israel-Diaspora relations were roiled by a fierce debate over the Rotem bill. The bill’s stated aim was to ease the path to conversion for the hundreds of thousands of Israelis from the former Soviet Union who are not considered Jewish under Halacha and, as a result, cannot legally marry in Israel, where religious…

  Sep 1, 2010 | 6 min read
• Opinion

  Boycotted, Bothered and Bewildered

  Israel entered disturbing, unfamiliar territory this summer in its struggles against boycotts and economic warfare. After nearly a decade of noisy but largely toothless campaigns to isolate it on the international stage, Israel now faces a concerted effort by Palestinians under its rule to isolate the Israeli settlers living among them in the West Bank….

  By J.J. Goldberg Sep 1, 2010 | 3 min read
• Letters

  September 10, 2010

  Kaifeng’s Jewish Renaissance Your August 20 article “Israel’s Keenest Yeshiva Students” focuses on the Kaifeng Jews studying for conversion in Israel. But the real news is that the Jewish descendants — or Jews, as they see themselves — are organizing again as a community in Kaifeng. There are at least two Jewish schools in Kaifeng,…

  Sep 1, 2010 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Exiting Iraq

  After President Obama finished his Oval Office address, declaring an end to the combat mission in Iraq, one of TV’s talking heads grumbled that what was wrong with the president was that he seemed to love the troops but hate the war. Actually, that strikes us as what is right about the current occupant of…

  Sep 1, 2010 | < 1 min read
• Opinion

  Freedom From Facts

  The Glenn Beck “Restoring Honor” rally is over, and both Abraham Lincoln, whom Beck sought to take hostage, and Martin Luther King Jr., whom Beck sought to emulate, remain intact. We will get to Beck in a moment. But let us get Sarah Palin, who was a featured speaker at the rally, out of the…

  By Leonard Fein Sep 1, 2010 | 5 min read
• Letters

  September 10, 2010

  100 Years Ago in the Forward Tragedy struck in Brooklyn when a new mother threw her baby out of a fourth-floor window, killing the infant. Esther Jaffe of East New York was standing by the back window of the apartment that she shared with her husband and aunt, holding her 6-month-old baby. The aunt said…

  Sep 1, 2010 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  First They Came for the Sharia Court. Then They Came for the Bet Din

  Andy Silow-Carroll, the inestimable editor of the New Jersey Jewish News, offers a devastating dissection of the Sharia-phobia, as he calls it, that is invading our public and, via a certain cable channel, our living rooms as well. The news lede for his column is a recent ruling by a New Jersey court, dismissing a…

  By J.J. Goldberg Aug 26, 2010 | 3 min read