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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. 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 11, 2008 / 6 Nissan 5768

The Olympics: Bush shouldn't go

By Rich Lowry


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | "The journey of harmony" isn't living up to its name.


That's what organizers of the Olympic Games dubbed the tour of the Olympic torch before realizing that the flame would have to be secreted away during its ceremonial meanderings. It was extinguished at least once in Paris as pro-Tibet protesters besieged it, and in San Francisco it popped up unannounced in unexpected places lest demonstrators create an unseemly ruckus.


If they have a sense of humor, the gods of public relations must be smiling. China celebrated landing the 2008 Summer Olympics as a global PR coup that would seal its status as an internationally respectable power of the first rank.


Instead, China is reaping the embarrassment that comes with cracking skulls in Tibet and abetting genocide in Sudan as the world's eyes turn to it as the host of an event devoted "to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity."


The International Olympic Committee shouldn't hold the games in countries with closed political systems. There were four perfectly acceptable alternative cities to Beijing — Paris, Toronto, Istanbul and Osaka — that wouldn't have meant holding the games in a country where dissidents would be rounded up and jailed prior to the commencement of the high-jumping and synchronized swimming.


If the games weren't a de facto seal of approval, thugs wouldn't pant over hosting them. Hitler worked to keep the 1936 Olympic Games — awarded to Berlin in 1931 prior to his rise to power — in Germany. For good reason: historian William Shirer says that "he turned them into a dazzling propaganda success for his barbarian regime." In its eagerness to keep the Summer Games in Seoul in 1988, the then-authoritarian state of South Korea didn't crush protesters, thus arguably paving the way for its eventual political opening. China won't be so gingerly, but to the extent the games become the occasion for embarrassment for Beijing rather than glorious selfcongratulation, the better. The torch should be harried, and Western leaders should stay away from the opening ceremonies.


All of this is mere symbolism, of course. For China, though, it's the ceremony and the pretty picture that matter most. When Chinese President Hu Jintao met with President Bush at the White House in 2006, the substance of their talks was less important than a Falun Gong protester interrupting their press conference.


President Bush hasn't declared himself about the opening ceremony, understandably. If he says he won't go now, he'll lose any leverage over the Chinese. But ultimately he can't go, unless he wants to repeat his father's experience of rubbing shoulders with Chinese officialdom fresh from a crackdown. Bush has talked about religious freedom more than any other American president. In the past, he hasn't hesitated to irk China, meeting with the Dalai Lama in the White House.


We're warned that a boycott of the opening ceremonies would inflame Chinese nationalism. But China is a rising power beginning to flex its muscles; its nationalism gets exercised by nearly anything. We can't be held hostage to the perpetual inflammation of people whose nationalism entails stamping out the independence and culture of another country.


It is the misfortune of Beijing that it has lost the cachet it once had on the left. The country is associated less with Mao's Little Red Book than with capitalist development and rampant pollution, making it an acceptable target for moral censure. It helps that Tibet's most famous representative is a Buddhist monk and that the autonomy of a landlocked Central Asian region at 16,000 feet is a cause safely sequestered from any hint of the American national interest.


Tibet will surely get more restive rather than less as the August games approach. They are simply too good a platform for international attention (the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests began upon a high-profile visit by Mikhail Gorbachev). China will respond brutishly and hope its Olympic stage-management still comes off without a hitch.

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© 2008 King Features Syndicate

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