Editorial & Opinion | Opinion

Jerusalem, The Mundane City

05/04/2010 | Martin Raffel | Special To The Jewish Week | Opinion

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu received a standing ovation at the recent AIPAC conference when he declared, “Jerusalem is not a settlement. It’s our capital.” Pronouncements about Jerusalem as the united, eternal capital of Israel have long served as guaranteed applause lines in virtually every Jewish audience. Israel and world Jewry devote a great deal of attention to the city’s current and future political status.

On Jerusalem Day, Don’t Write Off Liberals

05/04/2010 | David M. Gordis | Special To The Jewish Week | Opinion

May 12 (Iyar 28) will mark 43 years since the Israeli army’s triumphal entry into the Old City of Jerusalem. This is certainly a moment for the Jewish People to celebrate the restoration of Judaism’s holiest sites to our people.

Halacha and Innovation Are Not Mutually Exclusive

05/04/2010 | Rabbi Shai Held | Special to the Jewish Week | Opinion

This past week, Rav Hershel Schachter, eminent Torah scholar and leading figure at Yeshiva University, issued fighting words. The ordination of women as rabbis is such a serious infraction of Jewish Law, he insisted, that it technically falls under the rubric of “Yehareg Ve-al Ya’avor”—one should sooner be killed than violate the Law.

On Jerusalem Day, Don’t Write Out Jews On The Left

04/30/2010 | David M. Gordis | Special to the Jewish Week | Opinion

Law Day and the US Senate

04/27/2010 | Nancy Ratzan | Special to the Jewish Week | Opinion

May 1 was proclaimed Law Day in 1958 by President Eisenhower, in an explicit effort to pre-empt the celebration of May Day as an international worker's holiday - one that honored the struggle for the eight-hour day begun in the US. But the celebration of the rule of law and observance of the struggle for workers' rights are not necessarily at odds. After all, it is through the democratic enactment of laws that our rights are made real. In our system, those laws are judged to be in accord with the protections of our Constitution - or not - by impartial courts.

In the Mix: Religion And A House Divided

04/28/2010 | Julie Wiener | Associate Editor | Opinion

My parents’ divorce, a month before I entered first grade, was undoubtedly the great trauma of my life.

I say this not to make them feel guilty or even to argue against divorce; had they stayed together, their unhappy marriage would likely have caused just as much, if not more, misery for all involved.