Opinion

• Opinion

  Separating Wheat From Dreck: I Defend a Principled Hawk from a Chickenhawk

  For the past few months I’ve been getting email blasts several times a day from someone named Dan Friedman (no connection to the Forward’s arts & culture editor), ultra-right email posts with short, pithy barbs aimed at Obama (whom he calls BHO), liberals and the Israeli peace camp. He’s pretty far over the line, but…

  By J.J. Goldberg

  3 min read
• Opinion

  The New Passion of Bernard-Henri Lévy: Defending Pope Benedict XVI

  The popular and ever-elegantly coiffed French moral philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy has weighed in at Huffington Post with a passionate defense of Pope Benedict XVI from the many accusations (including a few of my own) that he’s no friend of the Jews. It seems to me he makes a few points worth considering. As soon as…

  By J.J. Goldberg Jan 25, 2010 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  New Rules: Human Rights for Corporations, Fetuses on the Witness Stand

  It’s been a bad week for old-fashioned notions like the rule of law and respect for the law. Maybe it’s something in the air. This was the week that the Supreme Court ruled that multibillion-dollar corporations are just people and enjoy human rights and liberties just like other people—and deserve the protection of the state…

  By J.J. Goldberg Jan 24, 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

• Opinion

  Taking Hebrew Seriously

  In his delightful essay in today’s special education section, Michael Wex describes how he — a renowned Yiddishist — is often questioned as to why he sends his daughter to a Hebrew-speaking day school in New York. His answer: “My daughter and her fellow students are learning something that might look and sound just like…

  Jan 20, 2010 | 2 min read
• 
  Opinion

  Making Sense of Benedict’s Jewish Policy

  By this stage, outsiders trying to make sense of Pope Benedict XVI’s approach to Jewish-Catholic relations might be forgiven for wondering if the pontiff suffers from an undiagnosed case of schizophrenia. After all, this is the pope who made a point of visiting a Cologne synagogue in 2005 on his first foreign trip, and Auschwitz…

  By John L. Allen Jr. Jan 20, 2010 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Putting Our People’s Past on the Negotiating Table

  Who owns the keys to the Jewish past? Last year, the Palestinian Authority made headlines by publicly claiming ownership of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the fragments of hundreds of ancient manuscripts discovered in the caves of Qumran in the West Bank between 1947 and 1956 and which have been in Israel’s possession since 1967. Now,…

  By David Hazony Jan 20, 2010 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  A Specter Is Haunting Israel, Its Name Is Goldstone

  Goldstone yes, Goldstone no, Goldstone yes and no, Goldstone here, Goldstone there, Goldstone everywhere. An exchange in Jerusalem the other week with a close observer of the Goldstone report: “I am so tired of talking about Goldstone.” “Me, too.” And then, for the better part of an hour, we talk about Goldstone. The day before,…

  By Leonard Fein Jan 20, 2010 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Putting Israeli Diplomacy on the Couch

  The Middle East is no stranger to mystery and intrigue, but now and then an enigma emerges that confounds even the wisest among us. Right now, for example, observers worldwide are scratching their heads and wondering what could have possessed Israel’s number-two diplomat to seat the Turkish ambassador on a whoopee cushion. Well, it wasn’t…

  By J.J. Goldberg Jan 20, 2010 | 4 min read
• Letters

  January 29, 2010

  Filibusters Haven’t Benefited Minorities I must disagree with your editorial on Senate filibusters (“Minority Rule,” January 22). The filibuster is not a thing of “civic beauty” that empowers minorities and simply needs to be reformed, as your editorial argues. Filibusters are instead an assault on the legislative process. The Senate filibuster was used for decades…

  Jan 20, 2010 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  After the Earth Moved

  For American Jews who give generously to charity, there is often an inner struggle: How much should they support other Jews, and how much should they give to causes in the wider world? The response to the tragedy befalling Haiti demonstrates the wisdom of turning that binary dilemma from an “either/or” question to a “both/and”…

  Jan 20, 2010 | 2 min read
• Opinion

  Dos Pintele Yid Dept.: Chomsky Attacked as a Closet Zionist

  The tenor of Middle East debate in this country is evolving faster than most of us realize, and in unpredictable directions. The latest is the attack on Noam Chomsky for being too sympathetic to Zionism. Chomsky was interviewed December 2 on Voices of the Middle East and North Africa, a weekly talk show on radio…

  By J.J. Goldberg Jan 17, 2010 | 2 min read