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 20, 2008 / 15 Iyar 5768 Pajamas for Presidents By Paul Johnson http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | When I was a child of four or five my big sisters told me edifying stories about the rise of the British empire, which then occupied a quarter of the earth's surface. A favourite villain was Tippoo Sahib, Sultan of Mysore, a 'little monster' who was son of a 'big monster', Hyder Ali. Tippoo was known as 'Tiger' (like Stanley Baldwin) and hated Englishmen, and put to death any he captured in fiendish ways. He was finally put down, by the future Duke of Wellington, in the battle of Seringapatam, being killed in the process, leaving behind an immense pile of silver, gold, jewels and toys. Among the last was a mechanical tiger (himself) rending the prostrate body of an Englishman and emitting ferocious growls. It still works and is in the V&A, though the growls have become a bit husky. More important, however, was Tippoo's wardrobe, which likewise passed into British hands, and included many sets of pajamass. These were then unknown in England, though common in the Orient, especially in Turkey, Persia and India, where they were worn at any time of day, not just at night. The word is Urdu and means foot or clothing, and in transliteration can be spelt in over a hundred different ways. (The Americans always spell it pajamas.) Some English officers found the garments convenient for the hot Indian nights, especially if made of cotton, though Wellington himself always stuck to his nightshirt. Gradually the habit spread. Thackeray, born in India, called them peijammahs and Medwin pigammahs. The first Viceroy to wear them was the Earl of Lytton, chiefly to annoy his wife (Lyttons and their spouses always quarrelled). But Curzon, when Viceroy, refused to follow suit and made the article the subject of one of his sayings: 'Gentlemen never wear pajamass.' By then, however, at home in England, the pajamas was fast ousting the nightshirt for male nightwear and — an astonishing thing — was even being worn by certain upper-class ladies, such as Lady Desborough and other female 'Souls'. Their daughters, known as the 'Corrupt Coterie', were pajamas girls to a woman, Lady Diana Cooper setting the pace. Of course, once women began to wear pajamass, the awesome — dreadful — possibility opened up of pajamas parties. When was the first? The earliest recorded was given in Chicago by a well-known society hostess there, Mrs Edwin Avon, and duly reported in London by a shocked Westminster Gazette. They spread to England during the war, and were a favourite form of entertainment among the 'Bright Young People' (see Vile Bodies). No one knew what the girls wore under their pajamass. As Lady Anchorage darkly and confusedly put it: 'Pajamass are an excuse for concealed nudity.' When I was a teenager my mother told me to beware of girls who wore pajamass, as they were likely to be 'bold'. I had no objections to bold girls, actually, but was not going to say so. When I was in my last year at Oxford, I had digs in the Iffley Road, run by a Mrs Norris, a fierce and strict lady always known as Aunt Norris, after the character in Mansfield Park. She would never allow girls in the digs but she made an exception for a pretty friend of mine called Betty Bingley, known as Grable because of her long, beautiful legs. The blonde must have put a spell on Aunt Norris, because when I was working late in the library, she was allowed to come in and wait for me in my room. She would get undressed and put on my pajamass, and I would find her placidly lying in bed, her golden tresses spread over the pillows, reading Thucydides' Peloponnesian War (in Greek of course), usually the bit about the Syracuse stone quarries in Book VII, and sipping a mug of Horlicks supplied by Aunt Norris and liberally laced with brandy 'to keep out the cold'. I suppose Betty was 'bold'. Girls called pajamass 'pidgies' in those days. They were thought not quite proper at some boarding schools, where nightdresses, or nighties, were de rigueur. On the other hand, some men would not, or did not, wear them either. Churchill, for instance, rejected them, not for the reason given by Curzon but because 'I have such a tender skin that I can only wear silk next to it', and put on at night a vest only, which did not come down to his waist. His doctor, Lord Moran, noted in his diaries while sharing sleeping quarters with Churchill in an uncomfortable bombing aircraft or one of their trips to a wartime conference, that the Prime Minister complained of both the heat and the cold but made no attempt to alter his attire, Moran catching glimpses of 'a large, fat white bottom'. By contrast, Dr Mousadeq, the postwar Iranian demagogue, the first Persian politician to raise the nationalist flag against Britain's control of the country's oil industry, was an outstanding pajamas man. In those days, the early Fifties, we were not obliged, happily, to take the Iranians too seriously, and Mousadeq was much relished as a delightfully comic figure. He usually made his pronouncements, or gave newspaper interviews, wearing a pair of pajamass. Of course in Persia pajamass were perfectly normal daytime wear, before the adoption of Western suits, but it is not clear that the old boy, who had a long lugubrious nose and melancholy face, and delighted to raise a laugh among Western newsmen, wore pajamass for nationalist reasons. Indeed, he appeared to spend much of his time in bed. His pajamass, moreover, were the thick striped kind worn by English boys at boarding schools — I had identical pairs — and Sir Marcus Sieff, chairman of Marks & Spencer, used to claim that Mousadeq had 'obviously had them sent out from our shop in Oxford Street'. Mr Attlee, then Prime Minister, said that the pajamass were 'remarkably similar to my own'. Eventually the Americans, fed up with British dithering, staged a coup and Mr Mousadeq was forced to run for it, still wearing his pidgies. The Shah took over. I once interviewed him for TV, on his houseboat tethered to a jetty in the Caspian Sea. I looked anxiously for any sign of pajamass, but could see none, though I discovered that the pram in which the infant crown prince reposed had solid gold fittings. The mullah who currently tyrannises Iran wears sombre ecclesiastical nightshirts. Why Churchill did not wear silk pajamass is a mystery to me. Twenty years ago, my friend Carla brought me back from China a present of a fine silk pair of pajamass. I have worn them ever since 'for best', i.e. going to weekend house-parties, trips to Venice or on cruise liners etc. They are still absolutely perfect, as good as new, and evoke admiration from butlers, grooms of the chambers, chambermaids and others who glimpse them. I also have an amazingly thick pair, of a savage dark red, made of Cumberland wool, which were bought in the Lake District during a Wordsworth conference — the sort of garment worn by John and Roger, I imagine, in Swallows and Amazons, quite possibly by Nancy, too, though I suspect she preferred to sleep naked, for bravado. Today, I'm told, most girls under 25 also prefer to be bare in bed, though they put on sexy nightdresses for special occasions. The lads wear vests like Churchill, though not of silk, and boxer shorts. So pajamass in the West have lasted only 100 years. What is needed is another Coco Chanel, who designed fancy pidgies for men and persuaded even 'Bendor' Westminster to wear them. Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here. BUY THE BOOK Click HERE to purchase it at a discount. (Sales help fund JWR.). Eminent British historian and author Paul Johnson's latest book is "American Presidents Eminent Lives Boxed Set: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Ulysses S. Grant". Comment by clicking here. Previously: 05/13/08: Literary woodlice boring needless holes in biographical bedposts 04/01/08: When markets come crashing down, send for the man with the big red nose 04/01/08: Quality for dinner. Pass the Fairy Liquid, Old Boy 03/25/08: In search of an American President with brains and guts 03/18/08: Technological warfare against mice won't work. Try cats 03/11/08: What is a genius? We use the word frequently but surely, to guard its meaning, we should bestow it seldom 03/03/08: Fiction as a crutch to get one through life 02/26/08: Impatience + Greed = Trouble 02/13/08: Shakespeare, Neo-Platonism and Princess Diana 02/07/08: Where Industry Has Failed Us 12/19/07: People who put their trust in human power delude themselves 12/12/07: What is aggression? 12/04/07: Pursuing success is not enough 11/07/07: Are famous writers accident-prone? 10/31/07: Courage needed to disarm Iran 09/20/07: Who Will Say ‘I Promise to Lay Off’? 07/24/07: Greed is safer than power-seeking 04/02/07: Benefactors must be hardheaded 03/07/07: American idealism and realpolitik 11/28/06: Space: Our ticket to survival 10/24/06: Envy is bad economics 10/11/06: Better to Borrow or Lend? Rethinking conventional wisdom 08/22/06: Don't practice legal terrorism 08/08/06: A summer rhapsody for a pedal-bike 08/03/06: Why is there no workable philosophy of music? 07/11/06: Historically speaking, energy crisis is America's opportunity 07/06/06: The misleading dimensions of persons and lives 06/06/06: First editions are not gold 05/23/06: A downright ugly man need never despair of attracting women, even pretty ones 04/25/06: Was Washington right about political parties? 04/12/06: Let's Have More Babies! 04/05/06: For the love of trains 03/29/06: Lincoln and the Compensation Culture 03/22/06: Bottle-beauties and the globalised blond beast 03/15/06: Europe's utopian hangover 03/08/06: Kindly write on only one side of the paper 02/28/06: Creators versus critics 02/21/06: The Rhino Principle © 2006, Paul Johnson

Mitch Albom  Michael Barone   Dave Barry  Tony Blankley  Andy Borowitz  David Broder  Stratfor Briefing  Mona Charen  Linda Chavez  Ann Coulter  Greg Crosby  Rod Dreher  Larry Elder  Suzanne Fields  John Fund  Frank J. Gaffney  Lloyd Garver  Jonah Goldberg  Michael Goodwin  Julia Gorin  Jonathan Gurwitz  Paul Greenberg  Victor Davis Hanson  Betsy Hart  Nat Hentoff  David Horowitz  Laura Ingraham  Jeff Jacoby  Paul Johnson  Jack Kelly  James Klurfeld  Ed Koch  Ch. Krauthammer  Jonathan Last  Michael Ledeen  John Leo  David Limbaugh  Kathryn Lopez  Rich Lowry  Michelle Malkin  Jackie Mason  The Medicine Men  Dick Morris  Bill O'Reilly  Clarence Page  Kathleen Parker  Dennis Prager  Wesley Pruden  Tom Purcell  Jonathan Rauch  Celia Rivenbark  Robert Robb  Cokie & Steve Roberts  Pat Sajak  Debra J. Saunders  Culture Shlock  Roger Simon  Michael Smerconish  Thomas Sowell  Mark Steyn  John Stossel  Cal Thomas  Jonathan Tobin  Bob Tyrrell  Diana West  Dave Weinbaum  George Will  Walter Williams  Mort Zuckerman  Robert Arial  Chuck Asay  Chip Bok  Dry Bones   Lisa Benson  John Branch  Gary Brookins  John Cole  Paul Combs  J. D. Crowe  John Deering  Brian Duffy  Everything's Relative  Mallard Fillmore  Jake Fuller  Bob Gorrel  Joe Heller  David Hitch  Jerry Holber  Steve Kelley  Jeff Koterba  Dick Locher  Chan Lowe  Ranan R. Lurie  Jimmy Margulies  Rick McKee  Michael Ramirez  Jeff Stahler  Danna Summers  John Trever  Gary Varvel  Kirk Walters  How 2  Know-It-All  Lori Borgman  The Savvy Consumer  Elder matters  Fixit  Dr. Peter Gott  Marybeth Hicks  GET A JOB! by Marty Nemko  Richard Lederer  Tech Maven  Nutrition Myths  Supermarket Shopper  Bruce Williams  How Stuff Works