Opinion

• Opinion

  Seizing a Moment of Promise for Mideast Peace

  Things are starting to look up on the Middle East peace front. From the very positive White House meeting in July, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to take to “concrete steps” to revive the peace process, to the Arab League’s recent green light for direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians, we’re finally seeing some…

  By Uri Savir

  3 min read
• Opinion

  A Wounded People vs. Oliver Stone

  Abba Eban once told me a story about a conversation he’d had years before with a British friend. It happened in 1970, shortly after the Six Day War. The friend complained that Israel was acting unnecessarily defensive and inflexible for a country that had just won a major victory. “You must understand, we’re a wounded…

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

  An Orthodox Pledge of Compassion

  It has been nearly a decade since the film “Trembling Before G-d” introduced Jewish communities around the globe to the very existence of faithful and observant gay Orthodox Jews and their struggles. While many in the Orthodox world paid attention to the film at the time, since then there has been little or no change…

  By Steven Greenberg Aug 4, 2010 | 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 The challah that changed everything: Tracing Jewish baking back to Poland

  

• Nora Berman The Kennedy Center canceled all its ‘woke’ programming — so why is this Jewish musical OK?

  

• Dan Perry Israel’s new gift to the far right could help end the Gaza war

  

• Emily Tamkin Entering motherhood — and an obsession with the works of an Italian Jewish literary hero

  

The Latest

• Letters

  August 13, 2010

  Wedding Erodes Intermarriage Taboo Like it or not, the media-hyped Clinton-Mezvinsky intermarriage, discussed in your August 6 editorial, “When Marc Weds Chelsea,” will make religiously based Jewish opposition to such matches in our society more difficult. (I’m the groom’s uncle, although I wasn’t present at the ceremony.) Chelsea did not and will not convert to…

  Aug 4, 2010 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  The Mosque and Us

  Before it became a cause célèbre for Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich and other rank opportunists, before the Anti-Defamation League sullied a once-noble reputation by siding against religious liberty, before the tweets and satellite trucks spun this all out of control, the plan to turn an eyesore of an empty building two blocks from Ground…

  Aug 4, 2010 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  Why Do Legendary Warriors Become Nincompoops When They Join Our Side?

  I read this a few days ago, but for some reason its importance just hit me. It’s one of the smartest, most pointed questions I’ve heard in the escalating debate over the Afghanistan war. It was posed last week by a writer who’s not usually associated with pointed, incisive political analysis, Maureen Dowd of The…

  By J.J. Goldberg Aug 3, 2010 | < 1 min read
• Opinion

  The Swastika on My Wall

  Does the swastika represent animus against Jews alone, or should it be considered a symbol of universal hatred when it is directed against a Hispanic immigrant or an African-American family? The Anti-Defamation League has decided that the infamous, four-pronged symbol has become a broader expression of hatred and therefore won’t automatically consider its use anti-Semitism….

  By Jane Eisner Aug 1, 2010 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  Everybody’s Mad at Abe

  Boy, people are really steamed at Abe Foxman right now. The left wants his head for coming out against Cordoba House, the proposed Muslim community center near Ground Zero. The right, on the other hand, is enraged over his acceptance of Oliver Stone’s apology for his London Times interview. There’s a lot to deconstruct here,…

  By J.J. Goldberg Aug 1, 2010 | < 1 min read
• Opinion

  The Jewish Press Defends the Confederacy and Its Traditions. Again.

  Inquiring readers have a treat waiting for them in the current issue of The Jewish Press, the Brooklyn-based weekly that’s hands-down the most widely read Jewish periodical in the Orthodox community. I’m speaking of a front-page article defending the cause of the Confederacy and attacking Abraham Lincoln as a bigot. No, I’m not kidding. Read…

  By J.J. Goldberg Jul 31, 2010 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  When Marc Weds Chelsea

  Let’s get the formalities out of the way. We wish the happy couple siman tov u’mazel tov. A good sign and good fortune. Those sentiments translate in any religion, true? After that, the wedding of Chelsea Clinton and Marc Mezvinsky gets a little complicated. Even though the bride is not Jewish and appears to have…

  Jul 28, 2010 | 2 min read
• 
  Opinion

  The Law of Return at 60: Revisiting (and Revising) a Zionist Pillar

  It is appropriate that Israel’s Law of Return was adopted on the 20th of Tammuz, the yahrzeit of Theodor Herzl, founder of the modern Zionist movement. After all, it is the most fundamental law defining Israel as the state of the Jewish people. It gives any Jew — and only Jews — the automatic right…

  By Yair Sheleg Jul 28, 2010 | 5 min read