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May 9, 2008

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Reverence, Yes; Worship, No

Mona Charen: Did Israel Drive Out the Arabs 60 Years Ago?

JWisdom: Ultimate opportunities by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

May 8, 2008

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Israel at 3,500+

Jonathan Tobin: Still Fighting the Same War

Steven Plaut: How ‘nakba’ proves the fiction of a Palestinian Nation

JWisdom: Taking Israel for Granted? by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

May 7, 2008

Rabbi Hillel Goldberg: Israel is irrelevant to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Dion Nissenbaum: Latest Olmert scandal could derail efforts to force Israel's compromises

JWisdom: My Inner Ventriloquist by Sara Yoheved Rigler

May 6, 2008

Caroline B. Glick: Anti-Zionism at 60

The Kosher Gourmet By Ethel G. Hofman: In honor of Israel's 60th anniversary, the former president of the International Association of Culinary Professionals, whose members included the likes of Julia Child, is back with a smorgasbord featuring the taste and essence of the Jewish homeland

JWisdom: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Jewish Deer in Nazi Headlights

May 5, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Busy work

Jonathan Mark: Remarkable half-century old Mike Wallace interview with Abba Eban puts current anti-Israel sentiment into perspective

May 2, 2008

Rabbi Berel Wein: Rote religiosity

Caroline B. Glick: Whitewashing Hamas

JWisdom: Parent trap?

May 1, 2008

David Zwiebel: Faith communities can learn from Orthodox Jews in stimulating private philanthropy for religious education

George Friedman and Peter Zeihan of Stratfor: The Shift Toward an Israeli-Syrian Agreement

JWisdom: It's time to wake up by Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis

April 30, 2008

Jonathan Tobin: Pennsylvania's Democratic slugfest may leave some Jewish votes up for grabs

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: Fresh herbs, sauteed veal and tiny creamer potatoes makes a light spring dinner

JWisdom: How to Build a Mentch by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

April 29, 2008

Daniel Pipes: Barack Obama's Muslim Childhood

Joel Brinkley: On human rights, the U.N. once again strikes out

JWisdom: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: When The Truth is Unbelievable

April 28, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q: I'm often stuck in the doctor's waiting room for hours! Doesn't he owe me something for my wasted time?

Steven Emerson: New U.S. government policy advises agencies to avoid using some of the very same words that make up terror groups' names

JWisdom: Why You & I Never Die: A Jewish View of Immortality, Part I by Rabbi David Aaron

April 25, 2008

Rabbi Mitchell Wohlberg: Schadenfreude isn't kosher for Passover --- or at any other time

Rabbi Berel Wein: The secret of how the data bank of memory is transferred from one generation to the next

JWisdom: Stepping Up to A Higher Spiritual Life by Rabbi Lawrence Kelemen, Part III

April 24, 2008

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: The successful failure

Fred Burton and Scott Stewart of Stratfor: Placing the terrorist threat to the food supply in perspective

JWisdom: Stepping Up to A Higher Spiritual Life by Rabbi Lawrence Kelemen, Part II

April 23, 2008

Connie Ogle: An intricate game of a novel

Jonathan Tobin: Making Sense of the 'J Street' Jive

JWisdom: Stepping Up to A Higher Spiritual Life by Rabbi Lawrence Kelemen

April 22, 2008

Jonathan Rosenblum: Why Israel's 'Leaven law' matters

Caroline B. Glick: Obama the Savior

April 18, 2008

Rabbi Harvey Belovski: Multimedia tool of antiquity

Caroline B. Glick: Revealed Truths vs. revealed lies

JWisdom: More than miracles by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

April 17, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: Deconstructing Dayeinu

Rabbi Elazar Meisels: Is innovation at the Seder a slap at tradition?

JWisdom: Discovering Your Divine Mission, Part III by Rabbi David Aaron

April 16, 2008

Jonathan Tobin: A Prayer for Sderot's Children

Ethel G. Hofman: Sumptuous Seder

JWisdom: The Divine is in the details by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

April 15, 2008

Rabbi Dovid Zauderer: Let Charlton Heston Go!

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Jimma, tyranny's enabler

JWisdom: Relationships: Beyond Mars & Venus, Part IV by Dr. Lisa Aiken

April 14, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: The Snitching Supervisor

Jonathan Tobin: Forget the Fun and Games!

JWisdom: Sincerity is Valued Most by Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski, M.D.

April 11, 2008

Rabbi David Gutterman: A Mystery in the Middle East

Caroline B. Glick: Why Ahmadinejad smiles

JWisdom: Elevated illness by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

April 10, 2008

Stratfor Intelligence Briefing by George Friedman: A Mystery in the Middle East

The Kosher Gourmet By Steve Petusevsky: The spring elegance of asparagus

JWisdom: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: The Power of Rational Lies

April 9, 2008

Michael Feldberg: An all but forgotten Colonial doctor who put his Jewish values before his life

Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkel's "Everything's Relative" gets philosophical

JWisdom: Four Rabbis in Bnei Brak by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

April 8, 2008

Caroline Glick: Covering for the enemy

Elliot B. Gertel: 'House' goes Hasidic

JWisdom: Relationships: Beyond Mars & Venus, Part III by Dr. Lisa Aiken

April 7, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q: I have a translating business. Recently someone asked me to translate some financial documents that are clearly forged. Should I agree?

Jonathan Rosenblum : Israel is unwittingly helping to fuel the international campaign of delegitimization against it

JWisdom: Matzah and leaven as a life philosophy by Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski, M.D.

April 4, 2008

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: The Mystery of Suffering

Caroline B. Glick: Fear of democracy

JWisdom: Dirty Jews by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

April 3, 2008

Rabbi Y. Y. Rubinstein: Parents --- and the children who would be them

The Kosher Gourmet by Kathy Manweiler: Tempted by restaurant dressings? Don't be. Here are recipes that can be made at home, healthier!

JWisdom: The importance of retaining a 'slave mentality' by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

April 2, 2008

Mitch Albom: Child abuse, disguised as faith

Jonathan Tobin: Unreasonable Accommodations

JWisdom: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith with Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Eliminating Jewish Influence over Germans

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. 23, 2007 / 11 Mar-Cheshvan 5768

Time capsule

By Paul Greenberg


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Dear Historian,


It was wholly a pleasure and compliment to be asked to contribute an article for a time capsule you're putting together. It isn't every day an inky wretch is given a chance to talk to the future.


As you say, writers are an egotistical lot, so you believed the idea would appeal to me. Yet it doesn't. Not that I'm any less egotistical than any other would-be pundit, but my ego isn't the kind that is particularly interested in writing to the generation of 2057, which is when the time capsule would be opened. For someone used to meeting a daily deadline, writing 50 years ahead sounds … rather abstract. Even worse than writing for a quarterly.


One of the reasons why I went into newspapering rather than trying to stick it out in graduate school was precisely the dailiness of it. A scholarly treatise might not see print for years. In this business the reaction to what I write, whether favorable or un-, is almost immediate. And that is only one advantage of the ephemeral. It's good to get something written and be done with it. Imagine waiting till 2057 for reader reaction. It'd drive me posthumously crazy.


The late Murray Kempton, an exquisite writer even if he was a newspaper columnist, would understand. He always remembered something he was told by Westbrook Pegler, a figure of fame in this country back in the '30s who went from being a talented sportswriter to a feisty columnist to a demented right-wing crank lost in an alcoholic haze.


It wasn't his hatred of Eleanor Roosevelt that had driven him crazy, Pegler once told Kempton. That was not the case at all. "It began," he explained, "when I quit sports and went cosmic. It finished when I began writing on Monday to be printed on Friday." He just couldn't stand the wait.


Now, sir, if you could find a way to increase my column's circulation in 2007, I would be mighty grateful. But wait till 2057 to be read? No, thanks. I guess it's a character flaw. I'm not much of one for delayed gratification, at least if I won't be around for it.


I've never been much interested in human cryogenics, either. The whole idea smacks of the obscene. When I'm gone, I want to be gone. Let life be for the living. I have no interest in sticking around like some kind of nag. There are days when I almost look forward to the long rest. If the future wants to know what I had to say, it can consult the archives somewhere in the radioactive ruins.


Even if I had the time to spare from communicating with the present, I daresay I'd find other things to write besides some dead-earnest letter to the future — plays, short stories, love letters, ruminations, grocery lists, anything but writing something to be entombed and then disinterred half a century later. How I wish I could write poetry. But so many things are beyond me.


Now if you would offer me a chance to converse with the past, that would be different. I'd jump at it. I do hear from it quite regularly in the form of history, literature, ritual, old photographs and precious memory, and I would love to respond. How many apologies I would offer, how much love I would pour out to those who have gone before me — and gratitude. But the tyranny of time, which imprisons each of us within our allotted span, is such that, when it comes to communicating with the past, I reckon I'll just have to stick with prayer.


Be well, sir, and good luck with your project. If you like, you may include this column in your time capsule or, for that matter, anything else I've written, for what it's worth. But by 2057, I daresay today's newspaper column might sound … dated.


Contemporaneously,
Inky Wretch

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