Opinion

Opinions

Listening to Survivors, Learning to Face Life’s Struggles

Letters the Week of Jan. 27, 2011

We Need a Grassroots Movement for Judaism In the United States, Jews are outnumbered by Christians at a conservative ratio of 10:1 nationally. How is our culture supposed to keep up with the ever-expanding Christian society and not have our voices drowned out? We need a robust grassroots movement across the nation, and maybe even the world, to introduce people...

Editorials

Answer the Call

When some 500 Jews gather at the Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy on Sunday for the annual phone-a-thon for the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, they'll be doing more than making phone calls. They'll be delivering a message that your dollars count in our community. It's a message none of us can afford to ignore. At a time of growing...

Editorials

Increase the Pressure

Reports that Iran has suffered a major setback in its quest for nuclear weapons is welcome news, but it must not lead to complacency. Meir Dagan, the outgoing head of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, said last week that Iran likely would not have a bomb before 2015. Prior to that, Israeli assessments had predicted a weapon as early as this...

Kvetch 'N Kvell

Letters the Week of Jan. 20, 2011

Being Vegan Answers So Many Moral Issues Thank you for your cover story on the "ethical dilemma" faced by many Jews concerned about the origins of animal-derived foods ("What's Cooking, Kosher-Wise?" Jan. 6). Raising and killing animals is a topic that should receive more coverage in your paper as it encompasses serious moral questions that we Jews must contemplate. In...

Columns

Making Her Own Way, Supported by Family History

By:

Joseph Smukler

I sit here at my desk staring at the photograph of our eldest granddaughter, Shoval. She is wearing army fatigues, canteen dangling at her side, standing on a sandy dune, smiling under azure blue skies, with a Star of David on her military cap. How did all of this happen? She was born, reared and schooled in the United States...