Editorial & Opinion | Opinion

Intermarriage, Assimilation Are Not Interchangeable

04/13/2010 | Paul Golin | Special To The Jewish Week | Opinion

In a recent speech to the Jewish Agency, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussed challenges to the Jewish future and said, “The loss of identity through assimilation or through intermarriage or through both is the greatest toll-taker of Jewish numbers in the last half-century.”

Netanyahu is not the first and won’t be the last to use the words “intermarriage” and “assimilation” interchangeably. A Google search for “Jewish intermarriage and assimilation” produces more than 500,000 results.

Sports Nicknames And The Jews

04/29/2005 | Thane Rosenbaum | Special to the Jewish Week | Opinion

When an ethnic group or race endearingly becomes the nickname for a sports team, does that signal their arrival or shame? Native Americans have long decried the way sports fans have adopted tomahawk chops and tribal chants as ways to either root for or ridicule the Indians, Braves, and Redskins. On the other hand, the Irish don't seem at all bothered by Notre Dame's celebration of the poetry to their more pugnacious side.

Time For Netanyahu To Be Creative

04/07/2010 | Francine Klagsbrun | Special To The Jewish Week | Opinion

Golda Meir had a technique for fundraising in Israel. Gather a hundred of the wealthiest people in the community, she advised, and lock them in a room until each pledges a designated sum. Tell them that if anyone refuses to contribute, that person’s name and refusal will be spread around town.

Nobody turned her down.

Jewish Peoplehood As Outcome

04/07/2010 | Alisa Rubin Kurshan | Special To The Jewish Week | Opinion

Much has been written of late regarding the Jewish Agency’s new focus on Jewish peoplehood and what that means for the broader Jewish world. Recent articles have charged that the Jewish Agency’s understanding of Jewish peoplehood is tantamount to secular, ethnic Judaism and that will be inadequate as the basis of strong Jewish identity.

We Count As Americans, But Not As Jews

04/01/2010 | Leonard Saxe | Special To The Jewish Week | Opinion

By the time we have cleared the dishes from our seders, those of us who live in the United States should have returned our 2010 U.S. Census forms. Completing the census is mandatory and if you failed to comply by April 1, you will be visited by a census-taker. As a matter of law, you can be fined for failing to submit the form or refusing to answer the required questions. In the end, we are all counted.

Encountering Our Faith Through Serving ‘The Other’

04/01/2010 | Ruth W. Messinger | Special To The Jewish Week | Opinion

In his recent piece in Commentary magazine, Jack Wertheimer, a professor of American Jewish history at the Jewish Theological Seminary, tackled a very worthy and critical topic: the disturbingly high cost of Jewish life in America. Unfortunately, he also introduced a puzzling straw argument that the Jewish community’s embrace of service and service-learning programs has undermined its ability to make day school education, Jewish camping, synagogue dues and JCC membership more affordable.