Opinion

• Opinion

  The N.Y. Times and the Jewish Nationalism Question. Bring Your Own Elephant.

  The New York Times touched off a lively little debate Wednesday morning, probably unwittingly, with an article from its Jerusalem bureau that was headlined “Jewish Nationalists Clash With Palestinians.” You don’t see the term “Jewish nationalist” very often these days, except in historical discussions of Zionism and its attempt to rebuild the Jewish nation. Suddenly,…

  By J.J. Goldberg

  3 min read
• Opinion

  Our Convenient Truths Are Not the Whole Truth

  Thinking about the Middle East is a sure-fire way to induce a headache — and, if you’re more than a disinterested witness, a heartache, too. Wise people will, therefore, seek to avoid thinking, will instead take such new information as comes their way and immediately squeeze it into familiar categories, categories that we have, over…

  By Leonard Fein Dec 2, 2009 | 3 min read
• 
  Opinion

  How Hanukkah Came to the White House

  The news that President Obama is cutting the guest list for the annual White House Hanukkah party from 800 to 400 lit up cyberspace over the past couple weeks. “More Proof Obama Hates Jews,” read one dispatch that crossed my desk. Other responses were equally hostile. Overlooked in the frenzy over whether the president was…

  By Jonathan D. Sarna Dec 2, 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

  There Is No Alternative to Day Schools

  The day school movement is embattled. After significant growth over the past two decades, overall enrollment at non-Orthodox day schools has taken a slight downward turn in the past several years. Complaints that day-school education is just too expensive have surged. Leading philanthropists insist they get more bang for their buck from Birthright Israel, or…

  By Irving Greenberg Dec 2, 2009 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Frisco Film Fest Fuels a Family Feud

  We Jews often pride ourselves on our devotion to memory. It’s a trait that unites Jewish communities everywhere. In the San Francisco Bay Area, for example, Jews are haunted these days by memories of a film screened there this past summer about a 23-year-old American woman who was killed in Gaza in 2003. Some members…

  By J.J. Goldberg Dec 2, 2009 | 4 min read
• Opinion

  Make Sure Oberammergau’s Passion Won’t Inflame

  The most prominent Passion play in the world will be performed next year in the Bavarian village of Oberammergau. Will the organizers finally rid the play of inflammatory portrayals of Jews and Judaism? Passion plays are theatrical dramatizations of the last days and hours in the life of Jesus based on narratives in the Christian…

  By Noam E. Marans Dec 2, 2009 | 3 min read
• Letters

  December 11, 2009

  Right and Wrong at the Western Wall In her December 4 first-person article “The ‘Crime’ of Praying with a Tallit, and a Plea for Tolerance,” Nofrat Frenkel admits that she entered the area at the Western Wall reserved for traditional women’s prayer along with 41 other women, wearing tallitot “hidden under our coats” and with…

  Dec 2, 2009 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  The Madoff Accounting

  A year ago, Bernard Madoff’s name was known mainly on Wall Street, in the toniest neighborhoods of Manhattan and Palm Beach, and by the few ordinary folks who thought they were unusually lucky to have tapped into his investment genius. Now, they know better. Everyone knows better. Now, his cocky visage made for Halloween masks…

  Dec 2, 2009 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  A Light in the Dark

  Hanukkah is a topsy-turvy holiday that often seems more commercial than spiritual, more exciting to children than adults, growing in importance the closer it is to Christmas. Its central beauty often gets lost in December’s excesses, its message of fierce self-determination at odds with the benign fuzziness of Yuletide wishes. But during this dark time…

  Dec 2, 2009 | < 1 min read
• Opinion

  Not Only for Ourselves

  The story was heart-warming, but instructive in an unexpected way. Jewish families gathered on a Sunday in a warehouse to pack boxes of pasta, canned vegetables and other food supplies and deliver them to needy residents in their region. Parents brought their children to reinforce the message of helping others. A brief dvar Torah was…

  Dec 1, 2009 | 3 min read
• Opinion

  Mea Culpa: For Misrepresenting the Bishops Conference, Ashamnu

  About a month ago I blogged about a document published by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops last June that had drawn sharp protests from several national Jewish organizations. I wrote that the bishops’ conference had responded to the complaints in October by withdrawing two offending sentences from the document, at the Jewish organizations’ request….

  By J.J. Goldberg Nov 26, 2009 | 4 min read