Opinion

• 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

  3 min read
• Opinion

  Drawing a Line in the Bay

  The Jewish Community Federation in San Francisco is stepping bravely into the fraught debate over the limits of public discourse about Israel. By issuing detailed guidelines for the kinds of Israel-related programming it will fund — and not fund — the JCF is searching for a balance between supporting full and free expression and adherence…

  Mar 17, 2010 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  No Longer in Ruins

  There is plenty to criticize when considering the Israeli government’s recent actions and statements on the future of Jerusalem, but that should not diminish its achievement in restoring the ancient Hurva Synagogue in the heart of the Old City’s Jewish Quarter. For years, all that remained of the synagogue was a stunning reconstruction of its…

  Mar 17, 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

  General Grant, the $50 Bill and the Jewish Question

  Republican Representative Patrick McHenry of North Carolina has stirred up a bit of a storm lately with his proposal that Ulysses S. Grant’s face be removed from the $50 bill and replaced with Ronald Reagan’s. Leave aside the obvious implications of a Southern Republican maneuvering to demote the president best remembered for defeating the Confederacy….

  By J.J. Goldberg Mar 15, 2010 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Purim in East Jerusalem: How Can We Sing Baruch Goldstein’s Song in Sheikh Jarrah?

  Israel’s environmental protection minister, Likudnik Gilad Erdan, went hiking on Friday in Nahal Kaneh, a wadi in the northern West Bank, near Nablus. He was accompanied by several hundred settlers, according to Maariv’s nrg.co.il Web site. The wadi was the scene of fighting several years ago between local Palestinians and the nearby settlement of Karnei…

  By J.J. Goldberg Mar 12, 2010 | < 1 min read
• Opinion

  Knesset to Biden: For Smooth Relations, Free Pollard

  With impeccable timing, a broadly representative group of Israeli Knesset members sent a joint letter to Vice President Joe Biden on Wednesday and asked him to work to free confessed spy Jonathan Pollard from federal prison in honor of the Passover holiday and “as an expression of the good relations and friendship between our two…

  By J.J. Goldberg Mar 11, 2010 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  Pesach on My Mind

  A friend, knowing how dense my Haggadah is — much of the traditional text, my own interpolations, sundry gems from here and there — asks whether by now I can’t just take for granted that the people at my Seder table know what needs to be known about slavery, about memory, about elements large and…

  By Leonard Fein Mar 11, 2010 | 4 min read
• 
  Opinion

  We Can’t Afford to Give Up on the United Nations

  For many Americans, and most Israelis, the words “United Nations” conjure up an image of an albatross at best, and a vulture at worst. Anti-Israel agendas, advanced by Islamic nations, routinely dominate the General Assembly and the U.N. human rights entities. Without the American veto, Israel would long ago have been the target of hostile…

  By Jack Rosen Mar 10, 2010 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Non-Zero Sum: Helping Others And Ourselves

  Should Jews first take care of our own, or first serve the needs of society as a whole? In the course of a meandering and much-discussed article in the latest issue of Commentary magazine, historian Jack Wertheimer of the Jewish Theological Seminary castigates the Jewish social justice world for prioritizing support for non-Jews over the…

  By Jill Jacobs Mar 10, 2010 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Only Israelis and Palestinians Can Make Peace

  There may be one point in the Middle East conflict on which we can all agree: It’s complicated. It is precisely for that reason that outside parties can’t simply declare a Palestinian state and call it a day. And it’s why we should be concerned over the notion, which is being increasingly bandied about, that…

  By Daniel S. Mariaschin Mar 10, 2010 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Dark Clouds Behind Survey’s Silver Lining

  Friends of Israel got a nice lift in late February when the Gallup Organization released a new poll showing that Americans favor Israel over the Palestinians in the Middle East conflict by a margin of more than 4-to-1 — fully 63% believe Israel is more in the right, while just 15% back the Palestinian side….

  By J.J. Goldberg Mar 10, 2010 | 3 min read