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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 Nov. 21, 2006 / 30 Mar-Cheshvan, 5767

Thanksgiving 2006

By Rich Lowry


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | It hasn't been a banner year. The United States is bogged down in a dispiriting war in Iraq, and North Korea and Iran continue to flout Washington's warnings and "red lines" with seeming impunity. But here are some things to be grateful for even in the Thanksgiving season of our discontent:

  • Democracy. We might be having trouble exporting it overseas, but it still works at home. If a political party becomes corrupt and ineffectual, the voters will find a way to force it from office, no matter how many institutional advantages it has stacked in its favor. The GOP just learned this lesson, and as soon as Democrats forget it, they will get a thumping of their own.

  • Milton Friedman. The late economist was one of the 20th century's most effective advocates for freedom, helping extend free markets here at home and spread them to places like China. He was a great scourge of inflation and helped provide Ronald Reagan with the intellectual ammunition to slay it in the early 1980s. His life — and his legacy — is an enduring testament to the power of ideas.

  • The Wounded Warrior Project. More than 20,000 U.S. soldiers have been wounded in Iraq. The Wounded Warrior Project provides services to the most grievously injured and their families to help them return to civilian life.

  • Muhammad Yunus. He won the Nobel Peace Prize this year, which is not necessarily a recommendation, since the prize often goes to anti-American hucksters. But he deserved it. His idea of microcredits — giving extremely small loans to extremely poor people to help them start businesses — has been a revolutionary tool in fighting poverty.

  • YouTube. Politicians' gaffes, late-night comics' latest bits, inspired and zany clips from amateurs the world over — all a click or two away. Why didn't someone think of this before?

  • The anti-race hustlers. Bill Cosby famously has spoken out about the cultural problems that hold African-Americans back more than racism or other structural obstacles. National Public Radio's Juan Williams has added intellectual heft to Cosby's argument with his new book, "Enough." They are brave men.

  • Save the Chimps. It and other organizations provide care and spacious homes for chimpanzees that have been used — and often abused — in entertainment and medical research, or as people's pets. Their work is featured in a new PBS documentary. If chimp advocates seem fanatical, it is only right that someone go out of his way for these intelligent and affecting creatures.

  • The pope. Whatever your faith or denomination, you have to be grateful that the West has such a figure, concerned with reconciling faith and reason, and operating always in the spirit of charity and love. Given other forms of religious expression the world has witnessed recently, this is a blessing indeed.

  • Saturday afternoons. Maybe college football has, as the critics say, become a terrible racket, distorting university life and the ideal of amateur athletics. But for the average viewer the only response can be, "Who cares?" It's just too much fun.

  • Mukhtaran Bibi. This young Pakistani woman was sentenced to gang-rape by her village elders after her younger brother was accused of having a relationship with a woman of another tribe. She fought back and had — a rarity in Pakistan — her attackers prosecuted. She now is an internationally recognized voice for the rights of Pakistani women, who are often punished for being raped. The country's lower house has just passed a change in the country's sick rape laws, a baby step toward civilized norms.

  • Marine Cpl. Jason Dunham. He was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously for falling on a grenade to save his fellow Marines from the blast. That sort of sacrifice and bravery is typical of U.S. troops in Iraq, but it is too often ignored. The New York Times didn't mention Dunham's incredible act, or his medal, even though he was from upstate New York. We should never forget.

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© 2006 King Features Syndicate

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