Opinion articles that represent the views of the Forward’s editors.
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Opinion The Bomb-thrower as Diplomat
Whatever its substantive merits or flaws, the nomination of John Bolton as America’s next ambassador to the United Nations encapsulates with excruciating precision the dilemma facing Jewish liberals in the Bush era. On one hand, Bolton’s acid-laced neoconservatism embodies pretty much all the things liberals dislike about President Bush’s foreign policy: high-handed unilateralism, disdain for…
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Opinion Max Fisher
It’s commonplace to greet a hero’s passing with extravagant claims that the mold has been broken, that his like will not be seen again. In the case of Max Fisher, the Detroit philanthropist who died March 3 at age 96, every word of that would be true. Fisher towered genially over American Jewish communal life…
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Opinion Democracy and Peace In the Middle East
Those who have been wondering when the worldwide march of democracy would finally reach the Middle East got the beginnings of an answer this week. In a scene reminiscent of the velvet revolutions that swept Eastern Europe more than a decade ago, the people of Lebanon took to the streets last Monday to protest Syrian…
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Opinion Bush’s New Tone
Beyond the specifics of what was said and done, there was an enormous symbolic importance in President Bush’s decision to visit Europe this week as the first major act of his second term. After presiding during his first term over a perilous fraying of the Atlantic alliance, Bush appears to have recognized the urgency of…
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Opinion Same Old Same-old
One of the oddest features of Middle East debate in this country is its near-total detachment from the realities of the Middle East itself. Whatever happens over there, the players here can be trusted to continue reading from the script they learned years ago. In reality, Israel votes to begin dismantling settlements and withdrawing from…
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Opinion What Dean Said
Howard Dean carries a lot of baggage with him to his new post as chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Coming fresh from his failed presidential bid last year, he brings far more visibility and authority to the post than his predecessors did. He will be in a position to offer real leadership to a…
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Opinion How To Fix a Charity
The world of Jewish charity and community organization has been offered a rare opportunity for growth and adaptation with the publication this month of “From Predictability to Chaos?” the penetrating study of the United Jewish Communities by a pair of communal experts at Hebrew Union College, Gerald Bubis and Steven Windmueller. The study offers important…
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Opinion Not Peace, but a Start
Even the most enthusiastic boosters of this week’s Middle East summit in Sharm el-Sheikh aren’t claiming that the brief gathering signaled the dawn of some new era of harmony and peace. The meeting between Israeli and Palestinian leaders, together with the heads of neighboring states, did little more than ratify some practical understandings that might,…
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Opinion The moral degradation of Israel’s far right is even worse than you think
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Culture Gene Shalit, a mensch with a personality as big as his mustache, turns 100
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Fast Forward Connecticut Catholic school punishes students who targeted ‘Jew Canaan’ rivals on social media
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