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 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. 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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. 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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 March 5, 2007 / 15 Adar, 5767 Who's in charge? Might as well be John Kerry By Diana West http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Maybe it's impossible to feel nostalgia for what has never been, but that doesn't mean I don't find myself wishfully thinking about the Kerry administration that never was. That's because if we were just now into the third year of John Kerry's first presidential term, all of the horrible things going wrong in the world would make a lot more sense. For example, if, under President Kerry, the director of National Intelligence announced that Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al Zawahri, were re-establishing Al Qaeda training camps in Northwest Pakistan, the apparent lack of American action on such stunning news would seem OK —well, not OK, but the inaction itself would be something we had long grown used to. It would come quite naturally, then, to rail at President Kerry for trying to take Osama bin Laden's picture via satellite, but not trying to take him out. It would come quite naturally to think: If only George W. Bush had won that second term. Instead, the former president would probably be living large on his Texas ranch. While Americans despaired over, say, President Kerry's latest immigration nightmare —still-unsecured borders, pending amnesty for millions of illegal aliens, zealously prosecuted border agents —W. would be playing host, down-home but dignified, to the occasional reunion with Bush-II-1 alumni. Maybe he would have learned to ride a horse by now, just to release a nice photo now and then of the rider on the range (very Reaganesque), something for conservatives to regard with political longing while suffering through Monsieur Kerry's latest notion of presidential. And that notion surely would have included something as cockamamie as the "neighbors' meeting" on Iraq that was recently announced. This diplomatic potluck, calculated to seat jihad network "neighbors" Iran and Syria at the table alongside the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China, the Arab League and, of course, Iraq, might easily have had "Kerry administration" written all over it. But it is, unhappily, a Bush administration initiative, a new riff on the defunct Bush Doctrine: "You're either for us, or you're against us —we don't care which." What happened to the policy of not negotiating with terror-states like Iran? It's gone, apparently, replaced by a deadly confusion of cross-purposes. We want peace and stability in Iraq; Iran is already at war with us to destabilize Iraq and drive us from the region. We want Israel to live long and prosper; Iran supports Hezbollah and openly promises "to wipe Israel off the face of the map." As Andrew C. McCarthy, writing at National Review Online, put it, "There is no mutuality of interest." And when there is no mutuality of interest, there is nothing to talk about. With respect to Winston Churchill, "jaw jaw" is not always better than "war war." And I strongly doubt he would have approved of "jaw jaw" during "war war." There is an even greater problem with the premise of these negotiations. Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is someone whose concerns have far less to do with this world than the "next," whose rationale is shaped not by the consequences of economic sanctions or air raids, but rather by a Islamic vision of the apocalypse. Indeed, as the Hudson Institute's Laurent Murawiec has pointed out, Ahmadinejad, while mayor of Tehran, "insistently proposed that the main thoroughfares of Tehran should be widened so that, he explained, on the day of his reappearance, the Hidden Imam, Mohamed ibn Hassan, who went into the great occultation in the year 941 A.D., could tread spacious avenues." This not-so-trivial Ahmadinejad trivia came from a trenchant speech entitled "Deterring Those Who Are Already Dead?" in which Murawiec analyzed the jihadist mindset in thrall to violence, death and the afterlife. One conclusion: "Contemporary jihad is not a matter of politics at all (of `occupation,' of `grievances,' of colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism and Zionism), but a matter of Gnostic faith. Consequently, attempts at dealing with the problem politically will not even touch it." This, in Murawiec's analysis, neutralizes strategies of deterrence. It would also seem to upend any dangerously na?ve hopes for a level negotiating table in Baghdad. "Deterrence only works if the enemy is able and willing to enter the same calculus," Murawiec wrote. "If the enemy plays by other rules and calculates by other means" —the triumph of Allah on earth, for instance —"he will not be deterred." But he will come, it seems, to Baghdad to meet with ... the Bush administration. Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in Washington and in the media consider "must reading." Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here. JWR contributor Diana West is a columnist and editorial writer for the Washington Times. Comment by clicking here. Archives © 2007, Diana West