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Nov. 20, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: How to make every second of your life come first
Caroline B. Glick: Whither American Jewry
Nov. 19, 2009
Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Please Listen to this Godcast (5 minutes)
Jonathan Tobin: ADL Crosses the Line with Report Bashing Obama Critics
Nov. 18, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: What Judaism has to say about the secret of the Mona Lisa's smile
JWisdom.com: The (Jewish) Dating Game with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
Nov. 17, 2009
Steven Emerson: How Does the 4th Amendment Impact Terror Finance Investigations?
JWisdom.com: If Frank Sinatra married Edith Piaf with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein (2 minutes) Life lessons from what would be regarded as the most inappropriate lyrics ever sung
Nov. 16, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : When borrowing is stealing
JWisdom.com: Deconstructing faith with Rabbi Warren Goldstein (9 minutes)
Nov. 13, 2009
JWisdom.com Sarah's subjective reality with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 6 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's failure, Netanyahu's opportunity
Nov. 12, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet By Marialisa Calta : A sweet sweet potato treat
JWisdom.com Does God get tired? with Rabbi Harvey Belovski ( 5 minutes)
Nov. 11, 2009
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Jews and money: When anti-Semitism isn't
JWisdom.com Marriages are not made in Heaven with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (VERY fast 15 minutes)
Nov. 10, 2009
Michael Doyle: Author of book exposing CAIR ordered to remove supporting documents from Web
JWisdom.com If the creation so loudly shouts the existence of the Creator, why aren't more people believers? with Rabbi Naftali Brawer (9 minutes)
Nov. 9, 2009
Mark Steyn: Shooter exposes hole in U.S. terror strategy
JWisdom.com It's never too late to have a happy childhood with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review July 17, 2006 / 21 Tamuz, 5766

The faces of American heroes

By Kathryn Lopez


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Leave all your Oliver Stone biases at home when you go see his new film "World Trade Center." It's all-American and well-timed. This September will mark the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on American soil. And Americans — unless they happen to have a family member deployed or had lost someone on 9/11 — don't generally seem to have a keen sense that we're at war. This movie reminds us we are.


"For no other reason than it was the right thing to do." These are the last words spoken by one of the film's stars, Nicolas Cage, about the rescue workers who risked their lives, coming from near and far, to save the only 20 people who ultimately would be rescued from the rubble — words that parallel Rick Santorum's steadfastness in the Senate.


Santorum, R-Pa., is up for re-election this year in one of the country's most contentious races. He's behind and he's a lightning rod. But agree or disagree with him on the issues — abortion (he's against), the war we're in (he's a better articulator of it than most of the White House) — you'll have to agree there's something fundamentally American about him.


Because he takes the lead on especially controversial issues, Santorum is vilified. He brings some of this on himself, mind you, by choosing the issues he's going to go out on a line for; but he'll tell you he's just doing the right thing.


Santorum attracts much more than his share of nastiness. Google his name right now and you'll get a sense of what he and his family have to put up with. His wife, G-d bless her, encourages him in his desire to serve. But it's a sacrifice for more than the senator.


It is a choice, of course. But when you ask him why the heck he wants a job that entails so much abuse and so much frustration — some of the latter caused by his own party — he responds knowingly, but with an obvious humility: "Right now is an important time in the history of our country," he explained, with a sense of something bigger than himself he is participating in and being guided by. He believes he has made a positive contribution as a senator and has something more to offer. Going from Iraq discourse to just talking to Americans, he explained that, for him, political service is the right thing. And that's what he knows he ought to do. Because that's what we do.


He's not alone, thankfully, even in D.C. If you don't believe me, join me at a watering hole next time you're inside the Beltway. I'll introduce you to some of the most motivated, smart, (partisan, yes! I'd want them no other way) young people in this country — men and women who love America and serve it as key Hill staffers.


They work thankless hours and endure some ugly blows, but when you've got deeply held principles guiding you, you can handle it.


And that's exactly the kind of guys I want representing me in the people's body — the same kind of person who would go down to the World Trade Center as disaster struck — the same kind of guy who would risk his life in the military. Those guys on 9/11 Stone depicts had to endure something in intensity and whose horror most of us, thankfully, will never know. But they are the same kind of person you'll find all across the fruited plain who values teamwork, faith and family, who wants to do the right things.


You can be Democrat or Republican and agree that's what an American should admire in another — in our rescue workers, in our politicians, Democrat or Republican, Hollywood producer or senator. Because at heart, that's just who we are.

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