Opinion

• Opinion

  Rightists Target New Israel Fund Over Grantees’ Goldstone Testimony

  A right-wing Israeli activist group is waging a multi-pronged public campaign to discredit the New Israel Fund (NIF), which supports human-rights groups in Israel. The activist group, Im Tirtzu (“If you will it” — from Theodor Herzl’s epigram “If you will it, it is no dream”), made the Friday (January 29) front page of Maariv,…

  By J.J. Goldberg

  4 min read
• Opinion

  We Are What We Eat

  Sometimes, simply promising to follow the law of the land is a welcome step forward. In that spirit, the new ethical guidelines issued by the Rabbinical Council of America regarding kosher food production must be applauded, even with the understanding of what they are not. They are not a new ethical manifesto along the lines…

  Jan 27, 2010 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Commitment to Renewal

  Even if the reasons for doing so are prosaic, there’s a welcome symbolism in the decision by the Jewish Federations of North America to move its annual General Assembly from Disney World to the city ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. Federation officials say that there wasn’t enough space in Orlando to accommodate the thousands of expected…

  Jan 27, 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

  The Wiesenthal Center Digs Itself Deeper

  When I read that famed architect Frank Gehry was pulling out as designer of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s planned Museum of Tolerance in downtown Jerusalem, my thoughts immediately took me back to the site. Almost a year ago, I stood there with a group of rabbinical students and other young Jewish leaders to voice our…

  By Rabbi Alana Alpert Jan 27, 2010 | 3 min read
• 
  Opinion

  The Grand Old Party’s Nor’easter

  Last spring, when Arlen Specter defected to the Democratic Party, the Republicans didn’t only lose their party’s sole Jewish senator. They also lost one of only four remaining Northeastern Republicans in the Senate. The conventional wisdom at the time was that the GOP was quickly becoming the party of the South and “flyover country.” Democrats…

  By Noam Neusner Jan 27, 2010 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  War on Internet Is a Fight the Rabbis Can’t Win

  Are Israel’s Haredi religious authorities losing control of their followers? In December, leading Israeli rabbis launched a new push to curtail Internet use among ultra-Orthodox Jews, emphasizing that their longstanding ban on Web surfing applied to sites geared toward the Haredi community as well. They threatened stricter penalties than ever before for those who disobeyed….

  By Miriam Shaviv Jan 27, 2010 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  So Tell Me, Rabbi, When Can I Criticize?

  You probably know this one: Yankel the beggar goes to the rabbi and pleads for a handout. “Please, Rabbi,” he says, “I haven’t eaten in days.” “Poor fellow,” the rabbi replies. “Here’s a ruble. Go buy yourself a meal.” An hour later, the rabbi is walking past the tavern and sees Yankel eating a big…

  By J.J. Goldberg Jan 27, 2010 | 4 min read
• Letters

  February 5, 2009

  Hateful Book Violates Jewish Values It is shocking that a book suggesting the biblical imperative of “Thou Shalt Not Murder” only applies to “a Jew who kills a Jew” is widely available in religious bookstores in Israel and has been enthusiastically endorsed by several prominent rabbis (“Rabbinic Text or Call to Terror?” January 29). The…

  Jan 27, 2010 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  What Haiti Requires of Us

  And now Haiti. The Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 — an earthquake under the ocean, generating a tidal wave that in some places was a hundred feet high — left 226,000 dead. In Haiti, it is too soon to know the final tally; too many bodies are still buried under the rubble. Current estimates are…

  By Leonard Fein Jan 27, 2010 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Meeting Benedict: A Rabbi Talks With the Pope

  The walk through the papal apartments led through several long rooms, each richly decorated in antiques and hangings and paved with marble. My journey to the heart of Catholic Christianity might have been expected to have precipitated long thoughts on history and family: What would the first Jacob Neusner, my grandfather from the town of…

  By Jacob Neusner Jan 27, 2010 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Is Danny Sanderson of ‘Poogy’ Fame Channeling Eddie Cantor? You Decide

  This is a clip from an early concert of Lahakat Kaveret, often known as the Poogy Band. There are four songs here: “Hamakolet”, “Magafayim shel Baruch”, “Goliath” and “Natati Lah Hayai”. It’s fabulous viewing if a) this was ever your thing and/or b) your Hebrew is good. But wait: There’s an eerie aspect, as I’ll…

  By J.J. Goldberg Jan 27, 2010 | < 1 min read