Unable to get an abortion during a tour of duty in Iraq, a soldier is left with no option but to do it herself—a humiliating but not uncommon dilemma. Women in the military are forced to obtain a leave to get the care they need; but if they’re honest about why, they put their military career in jeopardy. If they’re not, they put their military career in jeopardy.
The reactions to the English-language publication of a book deemed “a scandal” reveal as much about the politics of contemporary Israel (and of its relation to the American Jewish community) as they do about the history the book describes. It’s not that Shlomo Sand believes that the Jews are not the chosen people—he argues that they might not be a people at all.
The Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams delivers a tepid condemnation of the Ugandan Anti-gay legislation, although “condemnation” might be too strong a word.
Ironically, the president’s Nobel acceptance speech reestablished many of the (flawed) Bush justifications for war. Are we, or are we not, in a religious war?
A goyish writer wrestles with the anti-imperial themes of Hanukkah and the discomfiting questions it raises for citizens of the American empire. Might an empire be a force for good? Is “force for good” an oxymoron? And finally: how does a Roman manage, in practical terms, to say no to Rome?
This week brought a proposed $3.4 billion settlement to a little known class action suit against the US Department of the Interior on behalf of over 300,000 Indians. Our writer tells how his family history dovetails with the tragic story behind this lawsuit.