Opinion

• Opinion

  At Ground Zero, a Fight We’re All Losing

  Let’s try this: Women wearing a hijab, the Muslim head covering, ought not be allowed to walk on the perimeter of Ground Zero, lest they offend the sensibilities of the survivors of 9/11. And are we not all, in some sense, survivors of 9/11? The deaths there were so random, so pointless in their non-specificity,…

  By Leonard Fein

  3 min read
• 
  Opinion

  The Dirty Truth About Being a Tourist in Israel

  They tell you that you have to come to Israel. They tell you it will change your life. They tell you that with every other country, you can come and go as you please, but Israel, you can never really leave, because Israel will never leave you. That’s true, because Israel has really bad lice….

  By Noam Neusner Aug 25, 2010 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  In Cuba, a Hostage to International Brinkmanship

  Alan Gross, an American Jew and USAID contractor, has sat in a Cuban prison for nearly nine months. Jews, whose history is bound together by stories of exile and return, captivity and freedom, long for his release. Cubans, who have been weary bystanders for decades in the games of brinkmanship between their government and the…

  By Arturo Lopez-Levy Aug 25, 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

  The Israeli Right’s ‘Post-Nationalism’ Excuse

  George Will, the conservative Washington Post columnist, was in the Israeli prime minister’s office a few weeks ago and came away with a fascinating new take on Israel’s image troubles. Israel is hated in Europe, he wrote on August 12, quite obviously channeling the prime minister, because Europeans are tired after centuries of slaughtering each…

  By J.J. Goldberg Aug 25, 2010 | 4 min read
• Letters

  September 3, 2010

  Post-‘Conservative’ Jews Need a New Name Changing the Conservative movement’s name to “Masorti” would be beneficial because it is Hebrew and could thus be comfortably used by Jews affiliated with the movement worldwide. At the same time, “Masorti” more than adequately describes the character and thrust of the movement, that is, to be traditional in…

  Aug 25, 2010 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  Rescind the Ban on Attending Interfaith Weddings

  When I decided to become a rabbi in 1996, I visited the Jewish Theological Seminary, my future rabbinical school. Along with sitting in on some classes, I stayed in the apartment of four first-year rabbinical students. I still recall a discussion we had at the Shabbat dinner table. One of the rabbinical students raised the…

  By Jason Miller Aug 25, 2010 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Making Israel Work

  Part two of a series on poverty in Israel; to read part one, click here. Ephraim Guttman illustrates both the face of poverty in Israel and a solution. Dressed in the uniform of the ultra-Orthodox — the requisite black suit and white shirt, which makes no concession to the scorching summer heat — he does…

  Aug 24, 2010 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Israeli Police Ban Leftist Protests, Fearing Violence; O.K. Rightist Protests Despite Violence

  Police in metropolitan Tel Aviv are refusing to authorize a planned protest march in the largely Orthodox city of Bnei Brak by a secularist group called Forum for Equality of Burden, which advocates ending the automatic draft exemption for Haredi yeshiva students. Ynet reports that the forum announced plans to march through downtown Bnei Brak…

  By J.J. Goldberg Aug 23, 2010 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  You’ll Never Guess What the Laws of War Say About Attacking a Neutral Vessel on the High Seas

  I don’t know about you, but I find on occasion that there’s nothing more relaxing than to curl up with some good reading material. Well, the other day I was getting cozy with my favorite Geneva Conventions on the laws of war, and to my surprise I came across an annex to the conventions detailing…

  By J.J. Goldberg Aug 19, 2010 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Our Charmless Politics

  What to make of the political realm? We have a president of dazzling intellect, endowed with spectacular oratorical gifts, who improbably cannot find a voice to talk with the American people. Once, while Bill Clinton was still president, I heard him ruminate before an audience for 20 minutes or so, working out a connection between…

  By Leonard Fein Aug 18, 2010 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Gay Marriage and ‘Religious Freedom’

  The historic decision striking down California’s Proposition 8 affirms what many of us in the movement for GLBT equality have known all along: The fight over gay marriage is really a battle about whether we want religion to dictate our laws. Take away all the pseudo-sociology, the unsubstantiated (and demonstrably false) claims about how children…

  By Jay Michaelson Aug 18, 2010 | 3 min read