Opinion

• 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

  < 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

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 There’s a shocking new report on civilian deaths in Gaza. If only it were accurate.

  

• Nora Berman Is Netflix’s new show the most Jewish cartoon ever?

  

• 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

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  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
• Opinion

  Israel’s Marital Woes

  In recent weeks, with the controversy over the Rotem bill raging, the issue of conversion was thrust into the forefront of Israel-Diaspora relations. Those of us who opposed this flawed bill, which would have expanded the official Orthodox rabbinate’s control over conversion, should be glad that our efforts appear to have stopped it. But we…

  By Uri Regev Jul 28, 2010 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  In Shul, Cost Hasn’t Been a Barrier

  There had to be a catch — and a price tag. A rabbi left a message on my home answering machine inviting me to join an adult bat mitzvah class. But I was not a member of this rabbi’s suburban Boston synagogue. Intrigued, I returned the call. At 40, after spending the majority of my…

  By Linda K. Wertheimer Jul 28, 2010 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Seeing the South With Shirley Sherrod

  It would be an absurd overstatement to say that we were friends, but it is true that some 20 years ago, along with Irv Cramer, then the executive director of Mazon: A Jewish Response to Hunger, I spent the better part of a week traveling through Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi, a trip organized for us…

  By Leonard Fein Jul 28, 2010 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  A Mideast Disconnect and a Digital Divide

  There is a town in Portugal called Belmonte, about four hours north of Lisbon, that’s home to the only community of Jews in the Iberian Peninsula known to have kept their identity intact and well-hidden since the days of the Inquisition. Though they’re open about it today, they managed for nearly 500 years to live…

  By J.J. Goldberg Jul 28, 2010 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  War in the Age of Wiki

  To even skim through some of the 92,000 reports contained in the six-year archive of classified military documents made public by WikiLeaks is an exercise in extreme frustration. The Sisyphean struggle to combat the Taliban in Afghanistan is made clear page after page. The toll of war on the civilian population is not only horrifying,…

  Jul 28, 2010 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  First They Slimed Sherrod. Then Obama. Then the Jews. You Expected Otherwise?

  Well, well. I seem to have a missed a rather busy news week. I was cut off for a few days and didn’t have time to blog or follow the news, first because I was busy saying goodbye to a friend and second because I was sitting in a hotel in Portugal attending a United…

  By J.J. Goldberg Jul 26, 2010 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  The Rabbinate Is the Problem

  In Pirkei Avot, “The Ethics of the Fathers,” it is written: “Love work, hate holding power, and do not seek to become intimate with the authorities” (Pirke Avot 1:10). Now, let’s imagine that all the fervently Orthodox rabbis in Israel were men of unassailable virtue, wise like Solomon, gracious as Avraham, learned as Maimonides, humble…

  By Leonard Fein Jul 22, 2010 | 4 min read