Opinion

• Opinion

  Remembering a Personal and Political Tragedy

  For a list of events commemorating the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, click here. A century later, how do we remember the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire? Should the story be told largely through the heartbreaking testimony of descendants of the many victims, 146 in all, who burned or jumped to their deaths to escape a senseless…

  By Jane Eisner

  4 min read
• Opinion

  A Wisconsin Power Grab

  The assault on public-sector unions that began in Wisconsin and is spreading to other states prompts a key question: Should those who work in the private sector have a different set of rights and obligations than the teachers, sanitation workers, firefighters and office managers whose salaries are financed by taxpayers? “Government unions are not the…

  Feb 23, 2011 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  For Israel, a Lonely Day at Turtle Bay

  The way people carry on, you might think the United Nations Security Council was some sort of street gang waiting to beat us up on our way to school. Diplomats say that’s an unfair characterization; they speak of the council as though it were a gathering of tribal elders divining eternal truths. They’re both wrong….

  By J.J. Goldberg Feb 23, 2011 | 3 min read

Columnists View All

• Alyssa Katz My summer plans prove it: The Jewish Catskills are alive and kicking

  

• Rob Eshman ‘Remember the Liberty’ has become code for ‘Israel Is Evil’ 

  

• Dan Perry A new proposal to radically destabilize Israel

  

• Emily Tamkin Outrage over Nicholas Kristof’s op-ed on sexual assault of Palestinians is missing the point

  

• Jay Michaelson When it comes to Israel/Palestine, everyone is sure that everyone else is a bigot

  

The Latest

• Opinion

  Incivility Toward Civil Servants

  A few weeks ago, I gave a talk about Jewish perspectives on workers and unions at a Connecticut synagogue. Afterward, a retiree thanked me for speaking positively about unions. “I worked in the public sector my whole career,” she said. “If it weren’t for my pension, I wouldn’t be able to survive right now.” In…

  By Jill Jacobs Feb 23, 2011 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  An Appeal to My Muslim Friends

  I need your help and your reassurance. This is, I know, a time of great uncertainty in large stretches of the Muslim world. The Middle East is in turmoil. Dictators have been toppled, others cling desperately to power, and demonstrators fill the streets and the squares of the Arab world to demand freedom. I am…

  By Eric Yoffie Feb 23, 2011 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Revisiting Auschwitz

  On an average day in 2010, nearly 3,800 people visited Auschwitz, up from about 1,200 a day in the year 2000. Such numbers jar me, since my vivid recollection of my own life-changing visit, in 1973, is that in addition to the 42 folks I was traveling with, there were no more than a hundred…

  By Leonard Fein Feb 23, 2011 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Conversion Showdown: Rav Ovadia vs. the Ashkenazim

  A nasty fight is heating up between Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the mentor of Shas, and the rabbinic leadership of the Ashkenazi Haredi world. The Ashkenazi rabbis have called for a mass demonstration against Ovadia this coming Wednesday, and tens of thousands are expected to attend. In retaliation, a kashrut crackdown has been ordered by Sephardi…

  By J.J. Goldberg Feb 20, 2011 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  Where Are the Egyptian Intellectuals?

  Yoram Kaniuk, one of Israel’s most prolific novelists a senior stateman of Israeli letters, writes in his Ynet column that artists, intellectuals and poets seem to be glaringly absent from the Arab democracy protests. This week an Egyptian writer was interviewed about the uprising. He was reserved, but he spoke. Up until Monday, throughout the…

  By J.J. Goldberg Feb 18, 2011 | < 1 min read
• Opinion

  Busting the Budget

  My inbox has been crowded these last days by requests that I sign on to this draft letter or that, all demanding that budgets cuts proposed by House Republicans be restored. AmeriCorps fears it will be eliminated entirely. Federal help to states to defray some of the costs of special education would take a significant…

  By Leonard Fein Feb 17, 2011 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Learning Egypt’s Lessons, Getting Whiplash

  The democratic revolution in Egypt has captured the world’s imagination and kept us riveted to our television screens for weeks. Only now are we beginning to realize how profoundly our world has been changed. Now that the streets of Cairo have calmed down a bit, it’s time to step back and take a longer view…

  By J.J. Goldberg Feb 16, 2011 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Watching the Revolution, Eyes Wide Open

  A strange debate has sprouted up here in France regarding the events in Tunisia and Egypt — especially in Egypt — which the press calls a “debate between intellectuals.” I would say instead that it is a debate between activists and intellectuals, though of course one can be both at the same time. As a…

  By Marek Halter Feb 16, 2011 | 4 min read