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July 24, 2008

Rabbi Berel Wein: On the road again --- and again and again

Richard Z. Chesnoff: Mideast Refugees --- Failure vs. Success

JWisdom:: Word power is about more than vocabulary by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

July 23, 2008

Jonathan Tobin: The Mufti of Jerusalem's Nazi ideology lives on among contemporary Islamists

The Kosher Gourmet by Joe Gray: Smoked paprika turkey meatballs simmered in red wine and tomato sauce

JWisdom:: 'Routine' doesn't need to mean ‘rote’ By Rabbi David Aaron

July 22, 2008

Yossi Klein Halevi: Dear Barack Obama

Elliot B. Gertel: Eli Stone: Self-indulgent, arrogant corporate attorney as modern-day prophet

JWisdom:: Three Weeks - Nine Days - One Purpose by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

July 21, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Spending your kids' money

Mitch Albom: A grim exchange illustrates a key difference

JWisdom:: The Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith: Hammered on the Anvil --- Severed by the Sickle by Rabbi Nosson Scherman

July 18, 2008

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: The Sanctification and Importance of Time

Caroline B. Glick: US wants it absolutely clear it has no intention of attacking Iran's nuclear installations

Mona Charen: What can you say about a people who welcome a child murderer as a hero?

JWisdom:: Living a dog's life, dawg? by Rabbi Dovid Gross

July 17, 2008

Steven Emerson: Deals with devils

Libby Lazewnik: One Step at a Time

JWisdom:: Leader the follower? by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

July 16, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Poaching humans

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: Meaty pasta salad with summer berries perfect for warm evenings

JWisdom:: Keeping A Secret by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

July 15, 2008

Dennis Prager: False Equation: Opposing Same-Sex Marriage and Opposing Interracial Marriage

Joel Greenberg: Researchers look to Israeli circumcision program to help combat AIDS 'Alternatives' to Logic Won't Work

JWisdom:: Re-Jew-venating prayer, Part V: Why Judaism ISN'T Spiritual by Rabbi David Aaron

July 14, 2008

Jonathan Rosenblum: A warning from Canada to those who value life

Jonathan Tobin: 'Alternatives' to Logic Won't Work

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

July 11, 2008

Rabbi Francis Nataf: It's hard to be humble when you're great

Caroline B. Glick: A tale of two hostages

JWisdom:: Profane for Prophet by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

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

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 May 23, 2006 / 25 Iyar, 5766

Feminism beyond feminists

By Kathryn Lopez


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | In a Mothers' Day interview on ABC, first lady Laura Bush told George Stephanopoulos that she considers herself a "feminist." You would have thought she had uttered an entirely different f-word, considering the way some people reacted.


Screenwriter Nora Ephron ("When Harry Met Sally") immediately assumed veto authority over who can and cannot call herself a "feminist." Laura Bush cannot, she blogged. "Laura Bush isn't a feminist. You can't be a feminist if you don't believe in a woman's right to choose."


This isn't the first time the liberal feminist sisterhood has gone after Laura Bush. Earlier this year, shortly after Mrs. Bush had traveled to the Middle East, writer Erica Jong wrote: "it's time to ask why she is promoting freedom for women in the Middle East when the rights of American women are being systemically eroded by her husband's initiatives."


I'm sorry, but Ms. Jong has no sense of reality.


As Laura Bush said in another Mother's Day interview on "Fox New Sunday," in defending American foreign policy and thanking Americans for their sacrifices: "In Afghanistan, women can walk outside their doors now, girls can go to school, and girls and women in Afghanistan are so hungry for education that most schools have three schedules, with little kids going in the morning, and older children going in the afternoon, and then their parents going to school at night."


She summed up: "So those are huge accomplishments that we have been able to make as Americans because of our troops. So I want to thank all the mothers around the country, too, for their love and their strong support for their children everywhere, whether their children are in the military or not."

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The ironic thing about the feminist hostility toward Laura Bush is that she may be more with them than against them on their key issue, abortion. Way back in 2001, then wife of the president-elect, Mrs. Bush told "The Today Show" that she did not think Roe v. Wade should be overturned. She spoke in a way some Democrats who want to show less of an extremist side sometimes talk, about reducing the number of abortions, responsibility, and teaching abstinence. But when pressed further she won't discuss her "personal" views on the issue — she's widely believed to support legal abortion, but doesn't make a political issue out of it.


But the self-proclaimed feminist gatekeepers will have nothing to do with her. They'd have nothing to do with her if she thought Roe is the travesty that it is. They will have nothing to do with her regardless of her views, public or private, because she is married to a president committed to protecting the sanctity of human life.

FEMINISM IS NOT ONE NOTE
Feminism, however, is broader than the likes of Ms. magazine and other liberals would have you believe. Heck, I'd call President Bush himself a feminist if I didn't think it would give the Texan the creeps. Heck, I'll do it anyway: George W. Bush is a feminist.


Want to make Ephron and Jong more outraged? The late Pope John Paul II was a feminist; he wrote about the "genius" of the feminine. Actress Patricia Heaton calls herself a feminist and is adamantly against abortion. In one ad for the group Feminists for Life, Heaton appears with the tagline, "Every 38 seconds in America a woman lays her body down, feeling forced to choose abortion out of a lack of practical resources and emotional support. Abortion is a reflection that society has failed women.


There is a better way." She's not obsessed with keeping abortion legal like the establishment feminists, but she's seeking to reclaim the word feminism. And Heaton and her approach weren't born yesterday. The suffragettes — the women responsible for the 19th Amendment that gave women in the United States the right to vote — were against abortion.


I'm sorry, Ms. Ephron, but "feminism" is not only what you say it is. You'd think that those who hold the "feminist" banners might want to be a little more inviting at a time when most women want nothing to do with their doctrinaire sorority. In a recent New York Times poll, 68 percent of respondents said they do not consider themselves feminists. The sisterhood should embrace Laura Bush merely for being willing to use a dirty word. And they should be willing to rise to the challenge that feminists who follow the maternal instinct to protect all innocent life pose.

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