Opinion

• Opinion

  What Will Bibi Do?

  After a rough, unsettling few weeks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu clearly has some decisions to make. His well-honed ability to rally the troops at an AIPAC conference and shmooze lawmakers on Capitol Hill, all while holding his fractious coalition together back home were once again displayed with fine effect during his visit to Washington….

  2 min read
• Opinion

  Republicans on Obama: 24% Say He ‘May Be the Anti-Christ’ (Harris Poll)

  Just when you thought it was safe to leave the house: Author and former Giuliani speechwriter John Avlon posts, in a new blog post at TheDailyBeast.com, offers some mind-boggling numbers from new Harris poll. I’ll let him speak for himself: On the heels of health care, a new Harris poll reveals Republican attitudes about Obama:…

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

  First Violence in Health-care Backlash: Trashing Office of Jewish Rep (Hey, It’s Just Coincidence)

  First they went after the blacks. ‘Tea party’ protesters accused of spitting on lawmaker, using racial slurs (Washington Post) Then they went after the gays. Tea Partyers Call Frank a ‘Fa**ot’ (The Advocate) Then they started shouting down pro-life Catholics. Lawmaker acknowledges shouting out ‘baby-killer’ during Stupak floor speech (The Hill) Then they trashed the…

  By J.J. Goldberg Mar 23, 2010 | < 1 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

• Opinion

  It’s the Talk of the Town: Remnick on Israeli Obama-bashing

  New Yorker editor David Remnick put his finger on an important aspect of the current U.S.-Israel relationship, overlooked by most observers, that contributes to the current tensions between the two governments. In his Comment piece in the magazine’s current issue, Remnick writes that for all the pride Israeli leaders take in their grasp of American…

  By J.J. Goldberg Mar 22, 2010 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  Shas Explains American Policy

  When Israel’s Interior Ministry announced approval of plans for 1,600 new homes for Orthodox Jews in East Jerusalem on Monday, March 8, embarrassing the visiting Vice President Joe Biden, Interior Minister Eli Yishai of the Sephardic Orthodox Shas party found himself in the hot seat. After toughing it out for two days while the heat…

  By J.J. Goldberg Mar 20, 2010 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  How Not To Win Friends: Hug the Right, Alienate the Left, Snub the Jews

  Bibi Netanyahu is due in Washington next week to address the annual AIPAC Policy Conference. Nahum Barnea of Yediot Ahronot, the lead political commentator at Israel’s largest-circulation newspaper and widely considered the dean of Israeli journalism, has some advice for him. If you’re relying on the Jewish right as your main base of support in…

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

  Giving Israel the Cold Shoulder

  How did things get so bad between Israel and the United States? New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman puts all the blame on Israel. He cites the decision — announced by the Jerusalem District Planning Committee while Vice President Joseph Biden was in Israel — to build 1,600 housing units in the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood,…

  By David Hazony Mar 17, 2010 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Behind the Biden Flap

  No, Virginia, they were not sitting around wondering how they could humiliate Vice President Joseph Biden or how they could wreck the U.S.-Israel relationship. If you think they were, you probably also believe that the Mossad assassination in Dubai was purposely planned to end as a fiasco. But the spark behind the Biden flap was…

  By Leonard Fein Mar 17, 2010 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Treating a Terrorist as a Hero

  On March 11, 1978, a gang of seaborne Palestinian terrorists landed near a nature reserve on the coast north of Tel Aviv. There was only one person who had the misfortune to be on the beach that afternoon, a young American photographer named Gail Rubin. Gail, a native New Yorker who happened to be the…

  By Stephen M. Flatow Mar 17, 2010 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Kosher ‘Ethical Guidelines’ Sidestepped Ethics

  Over the past four years, the reputation of the kosher food industry — and indeed of Orthodoxy itself — has been badly tarnished by revelations about mistreatment of workers and animals and violations of law at the Agriprocessors kosher meat plant in Postville, Iowa. The Agriprocessors scandal demanded a decisive communal effort to reassert the…

  By Moses L. Pava Mar 17, 2010 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  A Confrontation That Was Inevitable

  No, it wasn’t embarrassment that caused a blowup in U.S.-Israel relations when Vice President Joe Biden came to Jerusalem. Nor was it a weakening of America’s bond with Israel. It wasn’t timing, either — at least not the timing of Israel’s announcement of new housing plans in East Jerusalem moments after the vice president arrived….

  By J.J. Goldberg Mar 17, 2010 | 3 min read