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July 24, 2008

Rabbi Berel Wein: On the road again --- and again and again

Richard Z. Chesnoff: Mideast Refugees --- Failure vs. Success

JWisdom:: Word power is about more than vocabulary by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

July 23, 2008

Jonathan Tobin: The Mufti of Jerusalem's Nazi ideology lives on among contemporary Islamists

The Kosher Gourmet by Joe Gray: Smoked paprika turkey meatballs simmered in red wine and tomato sauce

JWisdom:: 'Routine' doesn't need to mean ‘rote’ By Rabbi David Aaron

July 22, 2008

Yossi Klein Halevi: Dear Barack Obama

Elliot B. Gertel: Eli Stone: Self-indulgent, arrogant corporate attorney as modern-day prophet

JWisdom:: Three Weeks - Nine Days - One Purpose by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

July 21, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Spending your kids' money

Mitch Albom: A grim exchange illustrates a key difference

JWisdom:: The Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith: Hammered on the Anvil --- Severed by the Sickle by Rabbi Nosson Scherman

July 18, 2008

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: The Sanctification and Importance of Time

Caroline B. Glick: US wants it absolutely clear it has no intention of attacking Iran's nuclear installations

Mona Charen: What can you say about a people who welcome a child murderer as a hero?

JWisdom:: Living a dog's life, dawg? by Rabbi Dovid Gross

July 17, 2008

Steven Emerson: Deals with devils

Libby Lazewnik: One Step at a Time

JWisdom:: Leader the follower? by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

July 16, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Poaching humans

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: Meaty pasta salad with summer berries perfect for warm evenings

JWisdom:: Keeping A Secret by Rabbi Mordechai Becher

July 15, 2008

Dennis Prager: False Equation: Opposing Same-Sex Marriage and Opposing Interracial Marriage

Joel Greenberg: Researchers look to Israeli circumcision program to help combat AIDS 'Alternatives' to Logic Won't Work

JWisdom:: Re-Jew-venating prayer, Part V: Why Judaism ISN'T Spiritual by Rabbi David Aaron

July 14, 2008

Jonathan Rosenblum: A warning from Canada to those who value life

Jonathan Tobin: 'Alternatives' to Logic Won't Work

JWisdom:: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Poland's Unique Antisemitism, Part II

July 11, 2008

Rabbi Francis Nataf: It's hard to be humble when you're great

Caroline B. Glick: A tale of two hostages

JWisdom:: Profane for Prophet by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

July 8, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q. Duty to save gullible from themselves?

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Islamists have the West just where they want us

JWisdom:: Putting the Spirit Back into Spirituality, Part 3: The Fully Loaded Human Being by Rabbi Dovid Gross

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

JWisdom:: The Moses Method by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky

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

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 Feb. 1, 2008 / 25 Shevat 5768

The myth of Camelot

By Jonah Goldberg


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | The gods have made their choice. The Olympians have found their anointed one. Bow, bow, before the vessel of the Divine Spark!


So sayeth the priestly class of the mainstream media as they witness the divine laying of hands from the Kennedys upon the New Deliverer, Barack Obama.


He is, quoth ABC's Terry Moran, the "new son of Camelot." Moran continued: "Ted and Caroline Kennedy pass the torch to Barack Obama to carry the legacy of JFK." David Wright, also of ABC, proclaimed, "the audacity of hope had its rendezvous with destiny ... Obama is now an adopted son of Camelot."


MSNBC's Chris Matthews: "Today, for a brief shining hour, the young got to see what we saw, not the gauzy images of Camelot, but the living spirit of the New Frontier."


CBS's Harry Smith proclaimed: "In the civic religion that is Democratic politics, the most treasured covenant was passed to the young senator from Illinois."


One would think that in this age of hysteria about global warming, the press would show some restraint in releasing so much hot air into the atmosphere. Of course, in a gasbaggery race with Ted Kennedy, everyone needs to go into overdrive.


Still, it is a startling thing to behold: Nearly 45 years after the man's tragic death, the liberal establishment remains enthralled to the cargo cult that is the John F. Kennedy myth.


And it is a myth. Start with the "Camelot" label. It's worth remembering that nobody used that word to describe JFK's presidency when he was alive. The media's marketing of the term stems from Jackie Kennedy's recollection that her husband liked the Broadway musical "Camelot," which had opened a month after Kennedy's election. Theodore White, a journalist-admirer of Kennedy's, convinced Life magazine to run with the idea. The musical's tagline "for a brief shining moment" became an overnight cliché to describe the supposedly glorious idealism of Kennedy's "thousand days."


As James Piereson argues in his brilliant book, "Camelot and the Cultural Revolution," the mythmaking industrial complex kicked into overdrive largely to compensate for the fact that Kennedy was killed not by the American right but by a devout Marxist red named Lee Harvey Oswald. The propaganda campaign to blame "forces of hate" — code for the American right — was one of the most fascinating instantaneous "happenings" in U.S. history. For example, a young Texas reporter got hold of a false rumor that a classroom of schoolchildren in Dallas — aka the City of Hate — cheered when they heard Kennedy had been murdered. The local CBS affiliate concluded the story was untrue. But the enterprising reporter did an end-run and filed the story with the network in New York anyway. And with that, a young Dan Rather was off to the races.


But the mythmaking hardly ended there. Suddenly, JFK was hailed not merely as a liberal but as a sort of liberal messiah, martyred for trying to save America. Washington's Methodist bishop, John Wesley Lord, said Americans must "atone" for their role in Kennedy's death. The best way to "thank a martyr for his death and sacrifice" was to embrace liberal politics.


Vast conspiracy theories were churned out that Kennedy was murdered because he was going to pull us out of Vietnam. The Oliver Stone crowd has argued ever since that Oswald was the fascist military industrial complex's fall guy. This makes no sense. Kennedy ran to Nixon's right on foreign policy in 1960. Mere hours before he died, Kennedy was boasting to the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce that he had increased defense spending on a massive scale, including a 600 percent increase on counterinsurgency special forces in South Vietnam. The previous March, Kennedy had asked Congress to spend fifty cents of every federal dollar on defense.


One of JFK's original apostles, former speechwriter Ted Sorensen, is touting Barack Obama as JFK's "heir." But heir to what? Certainly not policies of any kind. Obama is dovish in every way JFK was hawkish. Indeed, Obama is to Hillary Clinton's left. National Journal rated him the most liberal senator of 2007. Sorensen himself admitted in a 1983 Newsweek interview that JFK "never identified himself as a liberal; it was only after his death that they began to claim him as one of theirs." He went on to say that "on fiscal matters (JFK) was more conservative than any president we've had since."


But Sorensen has now been overtaken by nostalgia. The legitimacy of Obama's coronation as our new "photogenic redeemer" (a phrase historian Douglas Brinkley used to describe John F. Kennedy Jr.), rests on cloud-castle platitudes about hope and unity, lacking even the slightest ballast of realism. It's political divinization, not policy detail. But what else would you expect from a party that has become a civic religion?

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