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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 March 14, 2008 / 7 Adar II 5768

Monsters and Racists and Sexists, Oh My!

By Kathleen Parker

Kathleen Parker
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Race and gender, once the courted darlings of the Democrats, are becoming party poopers. In the always-quotable words of the Wicked Witch of the West: "These things must be done dehhhhhh-licately."


Lately, Democrats — specifically female Democrats — have been cast into the outer darkness for speaking their minds in ways that have been interpreted as racist or sexist. Free speech, it seems, is no longer so free in the political arena.


As the aforementioned woman, whose primary mode of transport is a broom, might sketch in today's mud-slung sky: Surrogates beware.


Most recently rapped by the rulers of acceptable speech was Geraldine Ferraro, former vice presidential candidate and, until her resignation Wednesday, fundraiser for Hillary Clinton.


Ferraro committed that most egregious foul in the game of identity politics. She spoke of race and gender — but especially race — in an unapproved way.


"If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position," she said. "And if he was a woman, he would not be in this position."


Was her comment racist and deserving of denunciation? Or was she partially, if clumsily, right?


Hold that thought while we visit Adelfa Callejo, a revered 84-year-old lawyer/activist and Clinton supporter in Texas, who said last month that Obama would have trouble with Latino voters because he is African-American.


"When blacks had the numbers, they didn't do anything to support us," Callejo said. "They always used our numbers to fulfill their goals and objectives, but they never really supported us, and there's a lot of hard feelings about that."


True or false? Racist or observant?


In fact, Clinton leads among Hispanic voters, winning by a 2-to-1 margin in large states such as New York, California and New Jersey. In Texas, Clinton did the same, winning among Latinos by 66 percent to 32 percent. Callejo wasn't wrong about the end result. And even if some condemned her statement, her reasoning — based on experience and observation — was sound.


In both cases, Clinton was asked to "denounce and reject" these remarks. Clinton said she disagreed with Ferraro, but at first she gave Callejo more slack. "People get to express their opinions," she said of Callejo, adding that "a lot of folks have said really unpleasant things about me over the course of this campaign."


And more unpleasantness was coming her way. Soon thereafter, Samantha Power, Obama's foreign policy adviser, resigned after telling a Scottish reporter than Clinton was a "monster" who would do anything to get elected.


Sexist or true? Monster isn't really such a bad word. In French, monster is a compliment meaning "raving success." Its meanings in English include: "one that is highly successful." Of course, it can also mean ugly, wicked, cruel or terrifying.


But we quibble. Whatever Power meant, her intemperate word choice shouldn't have been a firing — or a resigning — offense for a Harvard scholar, who is also the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of a book about genocide.


No, Power was sacrificed on the altar of a nice politics that exists only in the rhetoric of the presidential candidates. As for Ferraro, her statement wasn't racist so much as it was racial. It is, in fact, unlikely that anyone else with Obama's experience — just two years in the U.S. Senate before he began running for president — would get this close to the White House.


There are lots of reasons for Obama's success that have nothing to do with race. But there's also this: You can't separate race from who Obama is. He is the biracial man. Although he self-identifies as African-American, it is precisely his dual race — and his own personal work toward identity integration and transcendence — that allows him to speak effectively of racial reconciliation and national unity in ways that a white male, or another black male for that matter, could not.


So, yes, Ferraro was partly right. If Obama were white, he probably wouldn't be where he is. And Callejo was at least partly right — to the extent she called the election. And, just maybe, Power was a little bit right. The Clintons are well-known for political ruthlessness that some would describe as monstrous.


What's clearly wrong is the convenient labeling — and silencing — of people as racist or sexist for expressing opinions that run counter to acceptable speech codes as determined by the minders of outrage.


Thus distracted, we ignore the real monster, whose name is Identity Politics.


It has two faces — and always bites the hand that feeds it.

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.

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