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Sept. 5, 2008

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: What does 'doing the right thing' entail?

Caroline B. Glick: The master strategist

Sept. 4, 2008

Ron Kampeas: Biden, Palin take lead in clash on Mideast issues

Bruce Dancis: With humor as their weapon, the Three Stooges took on Hitler

Sept. 3, 2008

Rabbi S. Binyomin Ginsberg: Productive school years don't just happen

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: Quick lamb stew serves up flavors of India

Sept. 2, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Costly Advice

Caroline B. Glick: Calling Israel's bluff

JWisdom: Wandering in Wonder by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

August 29, 2008

Rabbi Berel Wein: 20/20 sightlessness

Caroline B. Glick: When history is not repeated

JWisdom: Blessed or Cursed: It's Really Up to You by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

August 28, 2008

Steve Lipman: A Comeback for the 'Jewish Jordan'

Jeffrey Weiss: Researcher reports 'intriguing' diabetes breakthrough

August 27, 2008

Rabbi Zecharya Greenwald: Removing the perfectionist's mask

The Kosher Gourmet by Emily Nunn: Summer harvest linguine

JWisdom:: The Missing Link in Spiritual Life by Rabbi David Aaron

August 26, 2008

Yaffa Ganz: Grandma gets lessons in staying cool

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: The Dems' 'soft' jihadist

JWisdom:: Today: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Plague of indifference

August 25, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q: A friend is bearing a silly grudge from a supposed wrong. What recourse do I have?

Daniel Pipes: Barack Obama through Muslim Eyes

JWisdom:: The knowledge you need to overcome your insecurities by Malka Schulman

August 22, 2008

Rabbi Berel Wein: Life's essential ingredient

Caroline B. Glick: Dominos anyone?

JWisdom:: Actually, Do Sweat the Small Stuff! by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

August 21, 2008

Today in Biblical History by Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Popularization of Kabbalah: 20 Menachem-Av 1558 CE

Jonathan Rosenblum: Lessons from the Beyond

JWisdom: : The Olympian within is rooting for you -- yes, you! –- to go for the gold

August 20, 2008

Jonathan Tobin: Misleading Platform Platitudes

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: Chicken Salad with Asian Dressing

JWisdom: The Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith: America's Defense of the Jews --- Until WWII by Rabbi Nosson Scherman

August 19, 2008

Dennis Prager: If the Almighty doesn't exist

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Obama's Islamist problem has nothing to do with his upbringing

JWisdom: Think your life is messed up? by Rabbi David Aaron

August 18, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Business with Friends

Diana West: Roars About Russia, Bare Whispers About Islam

JWisdom: Relationship agony: The real cause by Malka Schulman

August 15, 2008

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: To love the Divine

Caroline B. Glick: Georgia, Israel, and the nature of man

JWisdom: The Truly Righteous Don't Demand Entitlements by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

August 14, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Confessions of broken spirit

Libby Lazewnik: The Numbers Game

JWisdom: Six Questions You'll Be Asked in Heaven? - Uh - Let's Just Take One for Now! by Gavriel Aryeh Sanders

August 13, 2008

Jonathan Tobin: Georgia should be on their minds

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: Go Greek: Pair flavorful lamb kebabs with a hearty salad

JWisdom: Human hybrids aren't science fiction by Rabbi David Aaron

August 12, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: Bless us

Daniel Pipes: The West's Islamist Infiltrators

JWisdom: From Sadness to Gladness: The Route from Tisha b'Av to Rosh Hashana by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

August 11, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: A Jewish view on fair pricing

Caroline B. Glick: Ignoring failure in Gaza

JWisdom: 'Communication' Is Not The Answer! by Malka Schulman

August 7, 2008

Rabbi David Gutterman: A Continuing Story With a Sustaining Goal

Rabbi Berel Wein: Mourning and morning

JWisdom: Yes, we are still in exile by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

August 6, 2008

David Ashenfelter: Government made military engineer's life a living hell because of his faith, Defense Department report documents

Jonathan Tobin: Speak the Truth; Defeat the Lies

JWisdom: Jewish Spirituality: Fusion or Confusion? by Rabbi David Aaron

August 5, 2008

Chris Leppek: Church/state wall beginning to crumble?

Paul Greenberg: Exit Olmert (no encore, please)

JWisdom: Serenity: Make the commitment by Rabbi Zelig Pliskin (Read by Gavriel Sanders)

August 4, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Am I taking advantage of another's psychological quirk?

Andrew Silow-Carroll: A black and a Jew walk into the White House…

JWisdom: The Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith: Edward R. Morrow visits the ‘living dead’ by Rabbi Nosson Scherman

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 1, 2008 / 25 Adar II 5768

On Race, Rice and Obama

By Debra J. Saunders

Debra J. Saunders
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | "America doesn't have an easy time dealing with race," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told the Washington Times in an interview last week. Rice added that members of her family have "endured terrible humiliations."


As the first African-American woman to serve as secretary of state, Rice is living proof of a new America where race is not an obstacle to garnering a leadership role in the most rarefied circles of government. Yet her remarks come as Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama is dealing with a controversy concerning his pastor of 20 years, Jeremiah Wright, that is likely to haunt Obama throughout his campaign. The controversy suggests that while American voters may be ready, in principle, for a black president, they may not go for a black candidate.


Many readers plainly told me in e-mails: They don't want a president who went to a church for 20 years even though its pastor bashed America and at times denigrated white folk. They believe that the same standards that would hold for any white politician — whom they would expect to walk out of a church service if the minister bad-mouthed black people — should apply to a black politician.


They clearly do not want a president who is anti-American. Former GOP Rep. John Kasich summed up the attitude last week on Fox News, when he noted that after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, he and his daughter walked out of a church service after an assistant pastor told the congregation that America "sort of invited" the attacks. "So, Obama says he doesn't want to vet his pastor. Why not?" said Kasich. "I mean, I vet my pastor all the time."


And: "Why not just denounce this guy and say this was crackpot stuff?"


Two readers provided reasons why Obama did not cut Wright loose. A 62-year-old white man named Joe recalled his youth in Tennessee: "Even if you were not bigoted yourself, so many white people expressed contempt for blacks that you either tolerated it without agreeing with it, or faced a very complicated social life, 90 percent in isolation."


Now, Joe observed, racial prejudice has become such a stigma in white America "that white Americans have the luxury not to tolerate it. It's like smoking — you can be intolerant of it today, couldn't be in 1960."


A black Californian in his 70s recalled his youth in an e-mail to me. When Calvin visited the South, he could only use colored bathrooms; when he went to a movie theater on a visit to Washington, he was refused admission and told it was "nothing personal." When he drove across the country before he served in the Army, he was regularly refused service. While some Americans see racial discrimination as history, for this reader, it is personal history.


Stack up Calvin's many experiences against the whine from white voters that they couldn't get away with saying what Pastor Wright said. Life is not fair: One group has been treated horribly. Members of another group cannot say every stupid thought that passes through his or her brains. Whose life is better?


All that said, I won't be crying a river for Barack Obama, who is getting a taste of what it is like to be clobbered because of a sound bite. Since the Wright story erupted, Obama argued on the TV show "The View" that the "endless loop" of visual "snippets" from Wright's sermons do not tell the story of who Wright is.


Of course, they don't. But when radio talk-show host Don Imus dissed young black female athletes, Obama announced, "There is nobody on my staff who would still be working for me if they made any comment like that about anybody of any ethnic group."


If there is a Wright backlash, it will exist, in part, as a rejection of the cycle of gaffe-and-pile-on that serves as a proxy for political debate in Washington. Is that small-minded? Sure. Live by the sound bite, die by the sound bite.

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© 2007, Creators Syndicate

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