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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

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 Oct. 15, 2007 / 3 Mar-Cheshvan

When tough love becomes brutal

By Clarence Page


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Perhaps you have seen one of those daytime TV talk shows that use juvenile boot camps as a ratings-building mix of education and entertainment.


Moody, insolent kids snarl and murmur curse words at tearful, frustrated moms who say they "just can't do anything with" the little brats anymore. The sober-faced talk-show host tries to talk to the kids without getting bitten. An outraged, hungry-for-blood audience chants, "Send them to boot camp!"


On cue, from behind the curtain pops the hero of the day, a drill sergeant. The kids are force-marched offstage and presumably onto a bus that will take them, as the prison boss said in "Cool Hand Luke," to "get their minds right."


Only he's not a regular drill sergeant. He's a counselor for a juvenile youth camp that is designed to humble, humiliate and reshape kids in the classic fashion of a military boot camp, only maybe meaner.


As portrayed in the bullring-like format of daytime TV, the boot camp approach resembles traditional behavioral therapy as closely as TV wrestling resembles a real sport.


Yet numerous parents and, in some cases, state juvenile authorities have turned to the boot camp approach in recent decades, as the parents on the TV shows say, "when nothing else seems to work."


Now recent headlines reveal that at least some of the boot camps that have sprung up around the country are problems in themselves. They can even be fatal.


A new report on youth boot camps and similar "wilderness programs" by the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress, reads like an MTV-generation version of Abu Ghraib.


The GAO investigated 10 deaths since 1990 in boot camps and "wilderness programs" and cited 1,619 incidents of child abuse in 33 states in 2005 alone. "Examples of abuse include youths being forced to eat their own vomit, denied adequate food, being forced to lie in urine or feces, being kicked, beaten and thrown to the ground," Gregory Kutz, a GAO investigator, told the House Committee on Education and Labor.


The parents of three teens who died at boot camps offered tearful testimony. Said Bob Bacon of Phoenix: "We were conned by their fraudulent claims and will go to our graves regretting our gullibility."


His son Aaron died of an infection from a perforated ulcer in a wilderness program in Utah, Bacon said, after the teen's complaints of severe stomach pains after long hikes, poor nutrition and inadequate gear in subfreezing temperatures were ignored.


On Friday, seven guards and a nurse were acquitted in Panama City, Fla., over the death of Martin Lee Anderson, a 14-year-old who was filmed being beaten by camp guards last year, minutes before he died. Video of the limp teen being hit and kicked by the guards after he collapsed while exercising sparked protests in the state capital and led to the end of Florida's boot camps for juvenile offenders. But the defendants said they were only following the rules at a tough-love facility where kids often faked illness to avoid exercise. The death, their attorneys argued, came from a previously undiagnosed blood disorder, not the rough treatment.


Leaders of the National Association of Therapeutic Schools and Programs and other trade groups point out that countless kids have been helped by residential youth wilderness camps and other treatment programs and the industry is committed to cleaning out the bad players. That may be true, but parents have not received enough warnings about the bad apples. Some of the investigated camps were not licensed. Others had set up shop in a new state after being shut down in another.


From 10,000 to 20,000 American children attend boot camps or similar wilderness camps every year, the GAO reports. Some charge as much as $450 a day.


For safety's sake, House lawmakers called for new federal regulations. That's not a bad idea. Large numbers of parents send their kids to camps in states other than the one in which they live and regulations — or lack of them — vary widely from state to state.


Even the best juvenile boot camp programs claim to offer "tough love" on steroids. Boot camp might work for some kids, and I favor whatever works. But every kid is different. Each learns in his or her own way. What helps some kids may have no long-lasting impact on others, except perhaps a negative one. Parents need to beware.


At the very least, parents should have some assurances that the oversight of such facilities is at least as tough as the tough love that boot camps claim to offer.

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