Opinion

• Opinion

  A Year of Harsh Blows, and a Growing Divide

  How to sum up 2009? For starters, recall that it capped the first decade of the new millennium, a decade that effectively began on September 11, 2001. A decade marked by a string of losses that would put the New York Mets to shame: the loss of America’s global respect and its economic stability, the…

  By J.J. Goldberg

  3 min read
• Opinion

  No Point in Prophecy, No Time for Despair

  Who can foretell the things that will fell us, who can count them? What I mean is, why bother? It’s not just that prophecy for some millennia now (since the destruction of the Temple, R. Yohanan says in the Talmud) has been reserved for children and fools. It’s that 2010 begins sourly, and there is…

  By Leonard Fein Dec 23, 2009 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  What Joe Didn’t Know, and When He Didn’t Know It

  Say it ain’t so, Joe! Just nine years ago, Senator Lieberman of Connecticut was a national symbol of moral integrity and punchy independence, the Senate’s very first openly observant Jew, the first Jew to appear on a major party presidential ticket, the first senior Democrat to rebuke President Bill Clinton’s naughty bits. Now, in less…

  By J.J. Goldberg Dec 20, 2009 | 4 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 is not deliberately killing journalists in Gaza. But it does bear responsibility for their deaths

  

• Emily Tamkin Trump’s attack on George Soros is ludicrous. It also endangers Jews (and everyone else)

  

The Latest

• Opinion

  ‘Religion Is Actually Spirituality’: An Exchange

  Last month, our Jay Michaelson, in a column titled “Religion is Actually Spirituality,” argued that “even the most diehard, hyper-rational, Lithuanian Orthodox, High Reform, or otherwise non- or anti-spiritual religionists perform religious acts because they want to feel a certain way. In other words, religion is a form of spirituality.” Michaelson’s take on the relationship…

  By Alan Krinsky, and Aurora Mendelsohn, and Jay Michaelson Dec 17, 2009 | 8 min read
• Opinion

  A Netanyahu Conversion? The Case for Skepticism

  Too transparent to be a scam, more nearly a farce. I refer to Prime Minister Netanyahu’s 10-month “freeze” in settlement construction on the West Bank, about as gummy a freeze as can be imagined, a freeze meant to change nothing, only to placate the Americans. That is, admittedly, an increasingly contrarian view. Many people, including…

  By Leonard Fein Dec 16, 2009 | 4 min read
• 
  Opinion

  Why Palin and Huckabee Dig Settlements

  The Republican field for 2012 is beginning to stretch its legs. Not surprisingly, presidential hopefuls have started to define themselves by what they are not: Barack Obama. There are predictable swipes at Obama’s health care reform plan, his deficit spending, his climate-related regulations and his obsequious displays before foreign potentates. If you are looking to…

  By Noam Neusner Dec 16, 2009 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  NGO Monitor Needs a Monitor

  A few years ago, Bar-Ilan University professor Gerald Steinberg set up NGO Monitor to, in the words of its mission statement, “end the practice used by certain self-declared ‘humanitarian NGOs’ of exploiting the label ‘universal human rights values’ to promote politically and ideologically motivated anti-Israel agendas.” Steinberg was on to something. NGO Monitor has since…

  By Yossi Alpher Dec 16, 2009 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Undermining an Israel-Diaspora Partnership

  Last month the school I run came alive with energy as 40 sixth-graders got to know 25 of their Israeli peers. They came together and discussed a Holocaust novel they had all read, did drama activities and an art project that grappled with what it means to be a leader, and participated in a workshop…

  By Mitchel Malkus Dec 16, 2009 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Four Myths About the Mideast and Real Estate

  ‘Take not heed unto all words that are spoken,” the wise old preacher Ecclesiastes wrote. You might find to your grief that people don’t always say what they mean — or worse, that they do. In that spirit, here’s a quick primer to some common sayings in circulation these days and what they really mean….

  By J.J. Goldberg Dec 16, 2009 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Real Family Values

  It is not yet the law of the land, but legislation to extend Israel’s national maternity-leave policy is well on its way to approval. Earlier this month, the Knesset voted overwhelmingly to grant new mothers six months unpaid leave — the first 14 weeks of which are paid. Even supporters of this legislation concede that…

  Dec 16, 2009 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Charitable Lessons

  The story in this week’s Forward about the $12.25 million gift from a group of donors to a Jewish day school near Boston arrives at the end of this trying, tumultuous year with several important messages. The first is that high-quality, pluralistic day school education is worth supporting. As Rabbi Irving Greenberg wrote on these…

  Dec 16, 2009 | 2 min read