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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 April 29, 2005 / 20 Nissan, 5765

With eyes wide shut to terror

By Diana West


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | It's amazing what's possible if you close your eyes. An American television news organization — such as ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, CNN or MSNBC — can close its eyes and accept videotape procured by Al-Jazeera in concert with terrorists who kill and maim American soldiers. A Hollywood director, such as Sydney Pollack, can close his eyes and pretend that terrorism is a plot device and the United Nations is an honest broker. Leaps of morality and boundaries of logic may be hurdled simply by turning a blind eye to facts.


To what end? Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Dorrance C. Smith connects the bloody dots between terrorists who assist Al-Jazeera in obtaining film footage that appears on the evening news in America. Among other pointed questions, he asks: "Do the U.S. networks know the terms of the relationship that Al-Jazeera has with the terrorists? Do they want to know?"


To date, the answer is a morally reprehensible no. But see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil monkeys aren't the best role models for journalists. Then again, maybe this very numbness to facts is in fact a culture-wide phenomenon that our news media merely reflect. Take Mr. Pollack's new movie on international terrorism, "The Interpreter." Stepping back from even the outermost brink of reality, it switched the source of terrorism from a fictional Middle Eastern country to a fictional African country. "We didn't want to encumber the film in politics in any way," Kevin Misher, the movie's producer, told the Wall Street Journal. Politics? How about encumbering the film with a little history or maybe a few current events?


But fantasy-land is where Hollywood lives these days. The world burns and Steven Spielberg remakes the sci-fi chestnut "The War of the Worlds." The producers of last summer's "The Manchurian Candidate" drop an Osama bin Laden-like character for being too "Tom Clancy." Meanwhile, Mr. Clancy's "Sum of All Fears" was also too "Tom Clancy," so the 2002 movie replaced the Islamic terror cell of the 1991 book with some generic old Nazis.


Then there's "The Great New Wonderful," the first movie set in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. But, as newyorkmetro.com reports, "The completed script never mentions Bush, terrorists, Michael Moore, Fox News, or even September 11." Don't look for Afghanistan, the hunt for Osama bin Laden or the fall of the Taliban, either. Why not? As director Danny Leiner put it, "I just wasn't interested in anything didactic." Didactic? What is "didactic" about our cataclysmic national experience? A potentially significant industry revels in its own irrelevance.


Of course, it gets worse. The New York Daily News reports that actress Maggie Gyllenhaal credits "Wonderful" with dealing "with September 11 in such a subtle, open way that I think it allows it to be more complicated than just, Oh, look at these poor New Yorkers and how hard it was for them. " She continues: "I think America has done reprehensible things and is responsible in some way and so I think the delicacy ... allows that to sort of creep in." Creep is right. Good thing "delicacy" is never, ever "didactic" or "encumbered by politics."


Then there's "24." This is the Fox television series semi-notorious for having performed public penance — in the form of a PSA featuring star and co-producer Keifer Sutherland — because it dared to depict minimally identifiable Muslim characters carrying out terrorist activities against American civilians. Early on, the show even featured an exchange of "Allahu Akbar" between two terrorists — mumbled, yes, but a first — just as though the First Amendment applied to television writers setting a story in the era of Islamic terrororism.


But following a no doubt friendly visit from the Council on American Islamic Relations, lo and behold, the Fox show found what you might call "delicacy." Suddenly, the program's circumspectly Islamic gang included a full complement of white, ex-military men, all with the inexplicable urge to shoot down Air Force One. In a recent episode, Marwan, the Muslim terror kingpin the show was originally "encumbered" with, videotaped a statement explaining why he was shooting a nuclear warhead at an American city. He did so standing before a flag covered in Arabic writing — daring for these politically correct times — but without once mentioning Allah, infidels, Islam or paradise. In other words, after all these years of Koranic communiques from assorted Islamic terror networks, Marwan's big moment fell PC-flat. This doesn't mean, though, that "24" isn't the topically bravest show around.


Still, what were the producers afraid of? When networks, movies and television deny the facts of jihad terror, they whitewash killers. Why?

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington 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.

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