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July 8, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q. Duty to save gullible from themselves?

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Islamists have the West just where they want us

JWisdom:: Putting the Spirit Back into Spirituality, Part 3: The Fully Loaded Human Being by Rabbi Dovid Gross

July 3, 2008

Rabbi Dr. Abraham J. Twerski: A spiritual budget (TOUCHING!)

Jeff Jacoby: Israel still paying for its defeat

JWisdom:: Re-Jew-venating prayer, Part IV by Rabbi David Aaron

JWisdom:: The Moses Method by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

July 2, 2008

Jonathan Tobin: Appeasers Make Poor Patriots

The Kosher Gourmet By Kathleen Purvis: Slaw, y'all: For BBQs or Sabbath dinner, these southern recipes are something else!

JWisdom:: Rabbi Mordechai Becher: Jewish Rx for A Simpler Life

July 1, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q. I think it's important to leave a legacy to my children. How much should I save towards this end?

Paul Greenberg:A President who is history deficient?

JWisdom:: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Poland's Unique Antisemitism

June 30, 2008

Jonathan Rosenblum: Remembering the architect of Torah Judaism for the modern world

Abe Novick: Hulk: Still a Jew?

JWisdom: : Putting the Spirit Back into Spirituality, Part 2: The Abandoned Child

June 26, 2008

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Quantum leap to evil

Caroline B. Glick: Victimized families must not be allowed to dictate policy

June 25, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Today in Biblical History: King Jeroboam of Israel prevents pilgrimage to Jerusalem

Jonathan Tobin: Real Friends and Real Enemies

JWisdom: Raping of reason By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

June 25, 2008

Steven Emerson: Kristof: Never Mind the Terrorists

Stratfor Intelligence Briefing: Mediterranean Flyover: Telegraphing an Israeli Punch?

JWisdom: Rabbi David Aaron: Re-Jew-venating prayer, Part III

June 24, 2008

Caroline B. Glick: What were they thinking!?

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Guilty knowledge

JWisdom: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Warping Innocence

June 23, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Diploma dilemma

Jeff Jacoby: A world without children

JWisdom: Rabbi Dovid Gross: Putting the Spirit Back into Spirituality --- Introduction

June 20, 2008

Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: Man: The Crowning Glory of Creation

Caroline B. Glick: Israel's darkest week

JWisdom: We aren't worthy? by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

June 19, 2008

Rabbi Elazar Meisels: The saints who don't come marchin' in

Chris Christoff: Muslim woman demands an apology from Obama after camera snub

June 18, 2008

Jonathan Tobin: Still Dancing Around Jerusalem

The Kosher Gourmet by Steve Petusevsky: Chilled fruit and vegetable soups

JWisdom: Souls Need A Check Up? by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

June 17, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: Baby Einstein

Caroline B. Glick: Bush's rhetoric, Bush's policies

JWisdom: Re-Jew-venating prayer, Part II by Rabbi David Aaron

June 16, 2008

Varda Branfman: Bob Dylan, won't you please come home?

Diana West: Academic dares to question the 'religion of peace'

JWisdom: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Positive Backfire

June 13, 2008

Rabbi Berel Wein: Trading manna for whine

Caroline B. Glick: Peace with friends

JWisdom: From the mouths of … by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

June 12, 2008

Michael Feldberg: Meet Paul Revere's pal, the Orthodox Jew who played a key role in laying Boston's cultural and business infrastructure

The Kosher Gourmet by Kathy Manweiler: No need to be tempted by Wendy's mandarin chicken salad

JWisdom: Re-Jew-venating prayer, Part I by Rabbi David Aaron

June 11, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: What would Hillel say?

Jonathan Tobin: UNRWA and NGOs: The Real U.N. 'Insult'

JWisdom: Sara Yoheved Rigler: Greatness Made Simple: How a momentary decision shifted life's course and destination

June 6, 2008

Rabbi Pinchas Stolper: Revelation: The basis of faith

Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Mere hours after becoming Israel's new 'best friend' Obama backtracks on status of Jerusalem

Caroline B. Glick: UN choosing to protect rogue nuclear programs

JWisdom: Sameness in difference by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

June 5, 2008

David Lightman: Now Obama wants to be Israel's newest 'best friend'

Obama's remarks to AIPAC policy conference

The Kosher Gourmet By Ethel G. Hofman: Shavous cuisine: Ruby Fruit Soup, Lokshen Kugel with Cheese, Key Lime Curd, Calsone Casserole Frittata with Wild Mushrooms, Sun-dried tomatoes and Olives, Baked Tilapia with Pepper Cheese Cream and Brown Sugar Shortbread

JWisdom: Why a Jewish Jerusalem makes so many nervous by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

June 4, 2008

Jonathan Rosenblum: A different sort of 'religious broadcaster'

Jonathan Tobin: Misgivings on the Road to Damascus

JWisdom: 44 Years Without An Argument? by Sara Yoheved Rigler

June 3, 2008

Daniel Pipes: Obama vs. McCain on the Middle East

Everything's Relative: There is a crisis growing in Orthodox synagogues worldwide, reveals Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkel

JWisdom: White Facades; Black Secrets by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

June 2, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q: Lie to outsmart discriminator?

He writes the songs that make our souls sing:Gavriel Aryeh Sanders interviews Jewish music legend Ben Zion Shenker; includes stirring, uplifting song

JWisdom: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Of laws and lives

March 22, 2007

J-Rhythms with Avraham Rosenblum: JWR's cutting-edge music program showcasing performers -- singers, song writers, musicians, and bands -- who learn and live the Torah lifestyle (OUR NEWEST IGODCAST !)

Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review January 21, 2008 / 14 Shevat 5768

Race hides campagn's bigger issue

By Clarence Page


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Usually I would like to see hecklers, no matter what their cause, go take a long walk off of a short pier.


But when some off-camera guy interrupted MSNBC's Democratic presidential debate in Nevada, shouting for an end to the "race-based (or baiting) questions," I sympathized.


I'm all in favor of questioning the candidates for their views on race and gender issues. But, after 20 minutes of the two-hour debate, I began to wonder if they were going to get to anything else.


For several days, the Democrats had slogged through a national argument that Sen. Hillary Clinton inadvertently started in regard to Martin Luther King Jr.'s role in winning passage of civil rights laws. Emotions were further fueled by questions about the role women played in helping Sen. Barack Obama's close loss to Clinton in the New Hampshire primary.


After days of seeing their party's political base divided against itself by the same identity politics that helped to build it, all three frontrunners did their best to be nice to each other at the Las Vegas debate and move on.


But in its opening segment, every time the three Democratic front-runners tried to shy away from race and gender, the questioners pulled them back in.


In one wince-inducing question to Sen. John Edwards, a San Diego woman asked, "Why should I, as a progressive woman, not resent being forced to choose between the first viable female candidate and the first viable African American candidate?"


It wasn't clear who was "forcing" the woman to choose between Edwards' opponents, but Edwards responded with a passionate recitation of his agenda and bio. He said voters should vote based on whether they believed "America needs change" and "the system in Washington is broken" and "middle-class Americans" are "struggling and suffering" and "can't pay for their health care" and "losing their jobs" and "can't pay for their kids to go to college."


As a guy who "grew up in a family of millworkers" and "the first person in my family to actually be able to go to college," winning similar opportunities for others who grew up like him was "central to everything I do, … a personal, personal fight for me."


To which Natalie Morales from NBC's "Today Show" brought laughs with this rather blunt question: "What is a white male to do running against these historic candidacies?"


Oh, I dunno, Natalie, maybe curl up and die?


But, no, Edwards didn't say that. He's nicer than I am. He talked instead about how proud he was to belong to a party that has "a woman and an African American who are very, very serious candidates for the presidency. They've both asked not to be considered on their gender or their race. I respect that."


Nice answer. It is particularly ironic for Clinton and Obama to be caught in an identity trap, since both have a long record of rising above identity politics and benefited from it by broadening their base.


In his second best-seller, "The Audacity of Hope," Obama relates a lesson he learned while sitting in the Illinois senate with a white Democratic legislator as they watched a black colleague, whom Obama called "John Doe," deliver a floor speech on why eliminating a certain program was racist.


"You know what the problem is with John," the white senator asked him. "Whenever I hear him, he makes me feel more white."


As an African American reading that passage, I nevertheless understood how that white senator must have felt. After all, sometimes I hear white people who make me feel more "black." I won't mention names, but some demagogic talk radio hosts come quickly to mind.


Obama observed that it's not easy for a black politician to strike the right tone between anger and not-angry-enough. But, rightly or wrongly, "white guilt has largely exhausted itself in America."


Every time news people talk about "the black vote," for example, I suspect it makes somebody feel "more white." But race is so deeply ingrained in American customs, traditions and memory that it's hard to cover politics without talking about it.

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