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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 Sept. 18, 2007 / 6 Tishrei 5768

al Qaida has lost

By Jack Kelly

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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Al Qaida's most spectacular attack came on 9/11. But its most successful attack took place two days before, when two al Qaida operatives posing as photo journalists assassinated Ahmad Shah Massoud.


History is biography, Ralph Waldo Emerson said. The history of Afghanistan, and of the war on terror, likely would have been much different if the Lion of the Panjshir had not been killed that dreadful day.


Ahmad Shah Massoud was a brilliant and inspirational military leader — his forces inflicted about 60 percent of all the casualties suffered by the Russians during their occupation of Afghanistan — and he was also the closest thing to a democrat Afghanistan had yet produced. My friends Jack Wheeler and Dana Rohrabacher, who knew him, said Gen. Massoud was potentially the George Washington of his country.


Ahmad Shah Massoud was all that stood between the Taliban and the total conquest of Afghanistan, which is why al Qaida marked him for death. Osama bin Laden knew that if he did this "favor" for Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader would resist the calls for extradition that inevitably would follow the attacks al Qaida was planning on New York and Washington.


Hamid Karzai has his virtues. But he's no Ahmad Shah Massoud. Afghanistan almost certainly would be better governed and more effective in fighting the Taliban if the Lion of the Panjshir were its prime minister.


Last Thursday al Qaida killed with a roadside bomb Sheikh Abdul Sattar Abu Risha, who was becoming to Iraq what Ahmad Shah Massoud was to Afghanistan. Sheikh Abu Risha was the founder and leader of the Anbar Salvation Council, the coalition of Sunni tribes that banded together to fight al Qaida. He, more than any person save Gen. David Petraeus, is responsible for the dramatic turnaround in Iraq.


The political "leadership" in Iraq has ranged from poor to frightful, in large part because Saddam Hussein ruthlessly murdered anyone who might one day oppose him. But Sheikh Abu Risha rose far above mediocrity.


"It is an Iraqi national disaster," Iraq's national security adviser, Muwaffaq al-Rubaie, said at Sheikh Abu Risha's funeral Friday. "What Abu Risha did for Iraq, no single man has done in the country's history."


"Sattar was seen as a legitimate, pro-American alternative to the current crop of Sunni leaders in the Iraqi government," wrote independent journalist Bill Roggio. By murdering the Lion of Anbar, al Qaida hopes to fragment the Anbar Salvation Council, weaken Sunni efforts to fight the terror group, and to foment strife between Sunni and Shia.


It could work out that way. But the murder of Sheikh Abu Risha also may backfire. More than 1,500 mourners attended his funeral. Mourners chanted "We will take our revenge," and "There is no God but Allah and al Qaida is the enemy of Allah," the BBC reported.


It cannot warm Osama bin Laden's heart (assuming it's still beating) to have so many Sunni Muslims in what just a year ago was al Qaida's stronghold in Iraq declaring that al Qaida is the enemy of Allah. Support for al Qaida has plummeted in seven of the eight Muslim countries polled by the Pew Global Attitudes Project. The assassination of Sheikh Abu Risha will not enhance the terror group's diminishing popularity.


The Anbar Salvation Council has chosen Sheikh Abu Risha's brother, Ahmed, as its new leader. "All the tribes agreed to fight al Qaida until the last child in Anbar," Ahmed Abu Risha said.


"The killing will give us more energy...to continue confronting al Qaida members and to dispose of them," said another member of the council, Sheikh Rashid Majid.


The assassination of Sheikh Abu Risha provides an opportunity for reconciliation between Anbar's Sunnis and the Shia-dominated government of Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, who in the past has never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity.


The presence of Mr. al-Rubaie, a Shia, at Sheikh Abu Risha's funeral is an indication Mr. Maliki may not miss this opportunity. His decision to erect a statue of Abu Risha in Ramadi was well received.


I said at the outset of this column that al Qaida's most successful operation was the assassination of Ahmad Shah Massoud. But it wasn't, in the end, all that successful.


It certainly wasn't for the Taliban, which once controlled three quarters of Afghanistan, and now controls a couple of caves. And though Osama bin Laden did escape extradition to the U.S., al Qaida lost its safe haven in Afghanistan. Thanks to Iran and the Shia militias it supports, we have not won in Iraq. But al Qaida has lost.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

JWR contributor Jack Kelly, a former Marine and Green Beret, was a deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration. Comment by clicking here.

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