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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 May 9, 2008 4 Iyar 5768 5768

Playing Performance Politics

By Suzanne Fields


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Are we having fun yet? The run-ups to the voting in Indiana and North Carolina kept Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama working on their performance art (and who knew that Ron Paul was still in the Republican race, but he won 7 percent of the vote in Indiana). Hillary joked slyly with George Stephanopoulos that Rush Limbaugh once had a crush on her. A girl sometimes takes what she gets.


Bill Clinton sighed and wailed like an exile from the Grand Ole Opry in the small towns of North Carolina. His Southern accent grew thicker and more mellifluous as voting approached, and he stopped just short of covering the old Tom T. Hall hymn to "old dogs, children and watermelon wine." He's a super-rich guy now, but he reminded everybody that he was raised on Arkansas barbecue: "I can smell that pig pickin', and you know I'm going to eat some later," he told a small audience in Dunn, population 10,000.


The Rev. Jeremiah Wright turned the Obama campaign into a momentary farce, perhaps deliberately, repeating news of his discovery that the U.S. government invented the AIDS virus to wipe out blacks and complaining that the man whose soul he mentored had turned out to be (gasp) a politician. This time his whole sermon was outrageous and nobody could cry "context" (though The New York Times did). The only literary reference he brought to mind was taken from Samuel Coleridge's "Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner," with the preacher as the albatross around Obama's neck.


Galloping across the horizon, shadowing the campaigns in North Carolina and Indiana, was the soaring cost of gasoline. The solutions offered by Hillary and John McCain were reduced to comic debate when the argument devolved to whether a gas-tax holiday would save drivers 25 cents a day or 30 cents a day. This isn't a strategy to help out with the pocketbook, sneered Barack Obama, but a strategy to get through the next election.


We've been so focused on our endless presidential campaign, turned dark and drear, that we've ignored a political story that's actually fun. Boris Johnson, a journalist who talks too much for his own good (is there any other kind?), was elected mayor of London. Today, he is meeting with Michael Bloomberg of New York in London for advice on what it takes to run a large world capital. Boris will probably regale him with the story of his childhood dreams of running for president of the United States. But unlike Hillary and Barack Obama, he has a witty view of who he is. "My chances of being prime minister are about as good as the chances of finding Elvis on Mars or my being reincarnated as an olive."


Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, a name that might be more troublesome than Barack Hussein Obama, was Margaret Thatcher's favorite columnist when he was editor of the Spectator, the sassy London political weekly. The best of his irreverent jests have been collected and strewn across the Internet.


British commentators, with their penchant for Shakespeare, describe him as Falstaff, with the shrewd intelligence that endears him to those who may not like his politics but enjoy his company. He's known as a court jester, a buffoon with an untidy platinum-blond mop and whose cap of bells tolls for the Tories. He defeated Ken Livingston, the lefty incumbent of the Labor Party who was mayor of London for eight years, and this gives the Conservatives hope that they can unseat Prime Minister Gordon Brown within two years.


But Boris has a tongue that slices pretense fine, and in the spirit of a more raucous and impolitic rhetoric than ours his tongue sometimes cuts Tory, too. When he was campaigning for the Conservatives in 2005, he promised infamously that "voting Tory will cause your wife to have bigger breasts and increase your chances of owning a BMW." Many Tories, reprising the spirit of the queen — Victoria, not Elizabeth — were not amused. His habit of reaching for the laugh without regard for consequences earned him the name "Boris the Menace." It doesn't rhyme, but you get the idea.


My British friends were heartened that he stayed "on message" during the campaign, and his victory speech was serious and eloquently to the point: "Where there have been mistakes, we will rectify them; where there are achievements, we will build on them; where there are neglected opportunities, we will seize on them."


You can't make a better campaign promise than that. Tally ho!

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