Forward.com

First, Do No Harm

Yoram Blachar is president of the Israel Medical Association, a pediatric nephrologist with a quiet manner who practices at the Kaplan Hospital in Rehovot. In 2007, he beat out two other candidates to become president of the World Medical Association, an umbrella organization representing 9 million physicians in 84 countries with a mandate to define and promote doctors’ ethical and behavioral codes. Given the hostility to Israeli academics and other professionals in some quarters, Blachar’s election was greeted with joy and pride by many Jewish physicians worldwide. “His election is a great happiness after all battles against the threat of boycott,” Hava Bugajer of Austria wrote to the IMA. Alas, the threat isn’t over.Read More

Prizes and Partners

By Jane Eisner

Forgive us for smiling. The past few weeks have brought exciting awards and new purpose to the Forward, confirming the quality of our work and helping to craft the future. At a time when the economy is struggling and journalism is stumbling through a complete rewrite, our good news is very welcome.Read More

The Legacy of June 12

There’s no way of ascertaining how many women sided with the reformist candidates in Iran’s disputed, discredited national election on this year’s June 12, but we do know that women played an active role in the tumultuous campaign leading to that vote and in the bloody days that have followed. The tragic death of Neda Agha Soltan, captured on grainy video and transmitted worldwide, may well become the symbol of this remarkable uprising, but she was apparently a passersby caught in senseless gunfire. Behind her, around her, are the countless Iranian women who are fighting for basic human rights and have slowly, painfully gained strength even as government repression grew. Their brave participation in the ongoing protests is no accident.Read More

Some of His Best Friends...

It comes as no surprise that Richard Nixon had an issue with Jews, but the latest disclosures are too delicious to ignore. Buried within the 150 hours of tape and 30,000 pages of documents just made public by the Nixon Presidential Library is this February 21, 1973 phone conversation the former president had with the evangelist Billy Graham. But at first, it’s Nixon doing the talking.Read More

Bibi’s Missed Opportunity

There’s a saying that Israel has no foreign policy, only a domestic one. In a sense, the observation reflects the existential question that has hung over Israel since the moment of its birth — a foreign policy distinct from domestic concerns is the kind of luxury enjoyed by nations old enough and secure enough not to have to fight for their very identity. In another sense, the saying reflects the raw reality of Israeli politics, dominated by the need to build and maintain coalitions with smaller parties often guided by even smaller fields of vision. Against that backdrop, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s major address on foreign policy was a domestic success. But Netanyahu missed the opportunity to become the statesman Israel needs and deserves.Read More