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May 14, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Snitching to the IRS

The Kosher Gourmet by Jill Wendholt Silva: Spring greens with fennel and herbs

JWisdom: A Righteous Gentile by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

May 13, 2008

Jonathan Mark: For pro-Israel voters, Obama's middle name should be the least of their concerns

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: The Leaker Shield Act

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

May 12, 2008

Chosen Words: A newsletter for personal and spiritual growth gleaned from classic biblical and other sources that will help you enhance your day to day life. Likely the most constructive three minutes you will spend today

Mark Steyn: Israel's 'doom' could also be Europe's

JWisdom: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: When Faith Meets Fate, Part One

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 Nov. 16, 2007 / 6 Kislev 5768

Two stories

By Paul Greenberg


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Sit down, make yourself comfortable, have a cup of tea, or maybe something stronger, and let me tell you two stories — one happy, one disturbing. Each with a moral, or at least an attempt at it. Any excuse to tell a good story.


The first features a grandchild of mine. I know, I know, columnists who start writing about their grandchildren should be quietly led off to the Old Columnists' Home. (It's located just this side of Grudge Creek and up the road from Calumnia.) But we can't help ourselves, grandparenthood being what it is. And telling you grandfather stories, Gentle Reader, beats all heck out of telling them to my barber, who keeps interrupting with stories about his own grandchild.


So the other day, while the World Series was still on, my daughter in Boston — actually Newton, Mass., which might as well be Boston — picks up Grandson No. 1, Aviav, from his Jewish day school. Five years old now, he tells her today was Red Sox Day at his school and he wants her to tell him all the rules of baseball. (I myself would love to hear her explain the infield fly rule; it'd be good training for Talmud 101.)


Soon mother and son are back at their house to keep an appointment with a workman. The workman arrives, wearing a noticeable cross around his neck, and proceeds to the basement while little Aviav and his mother settle down for a snack and a talk in the kitchen.


The boy hasn't quite got all the nuances of what was once our national pastime down, but his enthusiasm is boundless. One thing he wants to know is why he's learning about baseball at Maimonides, his orthodox Jewish school. Well, his mother explains, the Red Sox are Boston's team and his teachers (doubtless following Rabbi Hillel's injunction not to separate oneself from the community) want him to love the Red Sox. He gets the point at once: "And Jewish people love the Red Sox!" At which a deep, resonant voice is heard from the basement:


"NOT JUST JEWISH PEOPLE!"


The moral of the story, if you must have one: Only in America.


The second story also features a craftsman, a plumber by trade. I am in my own basement this time, talking to the contractor who's going to fix the water-soaked cabinet in the downstairs bathroom — as soon as the plumber has fixed the leak that caused it.


As one thing leads to another bill, my contractor friend tells me why it was impossible for those airplanes to have brought down the Twin Towers on September 11th, and why it's clear from the way the towers fell — right into their own footprint — that they were imploded. Reputable scholars and engineers agree, he says. It was an inside job, you see, probably by our own government or the people controlling it in order to carry out their diabolical globalization schemes, eliminate national borders, Mexicanize the economy, and generally further their nefarious schemes.


It does sound familiar. I get almost daily e-mails along the same paranoid lines from one of the country's more prominent conspiracy theorists.


My friend is just getting down to the details of what really caused 9/11 when a deep, vibrant voice is heard from under the bathroom sink:


"IT WAS ALL DONE TO PASS THE PATRIOT ACT!"


It's the young plumber. His father, as it happens, has studied biblical prophecies and it's all foretold there.


I don't doubt it, I don't raise any questions, I just lend my silent support once the plumber has spoken. I consider anything a plumber says definitive. Because when you need a plumber, you need a plumber. To cite Greenberg's Law No. 1 of household maintenance: Never argue with a man who can plumb. (This also goes for barbers, at least when they're using the scissors and razor.)


The moral of this story: Re-investigate the attacks of September 11th. Because widespread, unmet doubts about the official explanations will only fuel the vast well of paranoia that has permeated American political, social and religious discourse at least since the Salem witch trials. (Recommended reading: "The Paranoid Style in American Politics" by Richard Hofstadter, a classic in a crowded field.)


The reason those conspiracy theories about the Kennedy assassination have faded isn't just the passage of time but the regular investigations and re-investigations over the years. When they turned up no substantial basis on which to doubt the Warren Commission's findings, the conspiracy theories disappeared, or at least moved over to make way for new ones.


Yes, there are still True Believers around who would be happy to explain why the government/vast right-wing conspiracy/The Mob/your villain of choice actually did it. Indeed. I'll doubtless find treatises from most of them when I open my e-mail tomorrow. But they're no longer as prolific as they once were — because they no longer have a vacuum of information to fill.


The surest result of official non-responses is popular suspicion. With each re-examination of the evidence, the number of conspiracy theorists dwindles. And that may be the best reason to have still another investigation of the collapse of the Twin Towers, and hear from the most reputable and convincing of the doubters. In order to clear the air — just as was done at Ground Zero itself.

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.

JWR contributor Paul Greenberg, editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, has won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. Send your comments by clicking here.

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