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May 20, 2013

Richard A. Serrano: Is Meir Kahane's assassin now a changed man?

Hannan Adely: Town raises Palestinian flag at City Hall

Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Morgan Housel: When smart investors do stupid things

Sharon Saloman, M.S., R.D.: Hunger games: Eat more, weigh less, without starving

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star

The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting
May 13, 2013

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation

David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church

Emily Alpert: Recession dragged down birth rates for less-educated women
Morgan Housel: The deep downside of home ownership

Peter Teffer: Will Dutch police soon be stalking cybercriminals on your computer?

Heidi McIndoo, M.S., R.D.: Meatless 'meat' can have its own set of problems

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Celebrate! This must-try appetizer is delicate yet has depth of flavor: Corn-Leek Cakes with Caviar, Smoked Salmon and Creme Fraiche

May 10, 2013

Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be

Caroline B. Glick: The dirty little secret about Israel's Arabs

Mona Charen: Hawking's Moral Calculus: The man and the movement he embraces
Morgan Housel: The biggest retirement myth ever told

Sandi Doughton: Eyes may provide new insight into brain problems

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : The Great Gatsby's Jewish Ties; Jews in the "Time 100 list" List; People's Most Beautiful Women

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: A sweet-hot meal: Pear salsa spices up salmon

May 8, 2013

Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas

Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate

Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
Amanda Paulson: Study reveals sad truths about community colleges

Harvard Health Letters: Evidence weak that zinc, echinacea are beneficial

The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility

May 6, 2013

Edmund Sanders and Patrick J. McDonnell: Think Israel's objective in Syria is to weaken Assad or embolden the rebels? Think again

Brian Bennett: Israeli airstrikes may show weakness in Syrian defense

Michael Ollove: Millions of ex-felons, parolees and those on probation are about to be entitled to tax-payer paid health coverage
Karen Kaplan: Most men can skip PSA test for prostate cancer, urologists say

Kimberly Lankford: How to track down a lost life insurance policy

Dream of Mars exploration achievable, experts say

The Kosher Gourmet by Susan M. Selasky: EGGPLANT WRAPS are an easy, sumptuous and scrumptious meal

May 3, 2013

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Human Courage and the Unavoidable, Disturbing Text

Steven Emerson: Attorney General Fights CAIR in Court, Lauds it in Public

Mediterranean diet helps beat dementia: study
Harvard Health Letters: When to be screened for a hearing problem

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Iron Man's Jewish Connections; Marc Maron's New TV Show; Martin Landau Grows Up with Israel; Shalom, Allan Arbus

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: A sweet surprise for Mother's Day dessert

May 1, 2013

Jonathan Rosenblum: An Improbable Journey to Orthodoxy

Jonathan Tobin: Blame Obama, Not Israel for Syria Push

Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Halena M. Gazelka, M.D.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: What you need to know about implanted pain relief devices

Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine

Jessica Shugart: When it comes to math, MRIs may be better than IQs

The Kosher Gourmet by Mario Batali: The celebrated chef on how high-maintenance ASPARAGUS RISOTTO need not be

April 29, 2013

Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust

Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?

Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Morgan Housel: He's rich, smart and old: Listen to him

Thomas Salinas, D.D.S.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: The safety of amalgam fillings

Harvard Health Letters: Tomatoes and stroke protection

Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Swing into spring with lemon cream pie

April 26, 2013

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: The world is a mirror

Caroline B. Glick: Time to confront Obama

Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Kimberly Lankford: New strategies ease pain of paying for long-term care insurance

Howard LeWine, M.D.: Ask the Harvard Experts: Too much ibuprofen?

Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Jewish Major Leaguers, 2013; New Movies and Comedy Show; Shalom, 'Lumpy' (Leave it to Beaver)

The Kosher Gourmet by Emily Ho : A bright and cheerful salad to herald the warmer months ahead

April 24, 2013

Steven Emerson: Boston Bomber Exposes Islamist Secret

Morgan Housel Admit it: No one has any idea what's going on
Harvard Health Letters: Can you get headaches from headache medication?

Kerri-Ann Jennings, M.S., R.D.: How to easily get more Omega-3s in your diet

Melissa Healy: Pot in a pill: All the pain relief without the smoke

The Kosher Gourmet by Susan Russo: Chipotle Chili Butternut Squash Soup is bold, zesty, hot

April 22, 2013

Ken Dilanian: Counterterrorism's future is unclear

US man departing country arrested on terror charges
Barbara Williams: An unorthodox but growing treatment in a 9-year-old's battle against cancer

P.J. Skerrett, M.D.: How to recognize a good whole grain product

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Teen actor Jonah Bobo in New Flick: Hunky James Wolk on Mad Men; Erich Segal's Daughter Writes Prize-Winning Jewish Novel


Jewish World Review Dec. 14, 2006 / 23 Kislev, 5767

Our Iron Lady

By Bob Tyrrell


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | It was at Jeane Kirkpatrick's funeral this week that I finally heard of some good achieved by the United Nations amidst all its dithering and graft. According to Jeane's pastor, during her momentous tenure as our U.N. ambassador, Jeane was so wobbled by the international body's cynicism and moral emptiness that she forsook years of atheism and became a person of faith. Mind you, she had always had an abundance of secular faith before President Ronald Reagan tapped her for the United Nations. Her faith in the American way of life, its freedom, democracy and equality was as ardent as it was intelligently conceived. But after leaving the house of hustlers on the East River, she became deeply Christian; and religion gently informed all she thought and did thereafter.


Jeane has been the paradigmatic 20th century intellectual of the good sort. She began her intellectual life a socialist and an atheist. As those two sacred cows revealed their barnyard primitivism she reassessed the evidence. She became a Hubert Humphrey Democrat with her beloved husband, "Kirk," the legendary head of the American Political Science Association who through his tenure kept it a serious instrument of American scholarship. But by the 1970s many liberal Democrats were beginning their long dissipation into fantasy and the megalomania that we witness today. After a historic 1980 meeting with President Jimmy Carter, Jeane made it clear that enough was enough. Seeking the support of liberal intellectuals, Carter had summoned her and a handful of others into his pert presence. He worked his magic, and when she led her contingent of eggheads onto the White House front lawn she revealed to the waiting press corps the extent of Carter's political genius. For the first time in her life Jeane would support a Republican, Ronald Reagan. It was the beginning of a working relationship that led to deep friendship. Her respect for Reagan only deepened through the years.


With other liberal Democrats drawn mostly from the camps of Humphrey and Sen. Henry Jackson, Jeane came to be called a neoconservative. The movement began in the late 1970s and pretty much concluded in the late 1980s. Today's neoconservatives are mostly misnomers, the consequence of journalism's invincible ignorance. The original neocons broadened American conservatism and distinguished themselves by their independence of mind, their courage and their principled defense of the American way of life. They were very serious thinkers, often political scientists. Jeane and her husband, who had also been her teacher, fought for years to maintain high intellectual standards in academe.

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This readiness for combat Jeane brought into her political life and to her wide-ranging intellectual interests. She was always a lady, never without refinement; but with her keen mind and natural courage she never flinched if principles were at stake. Her public defiance of bullies both in domestic politics and in the United Nations is well known. Less well known is the counsel and loyalty she gave friends under fire. On the board of The American Spectator she was true blue when the Clinton administration harassed us with its grand jury and its journalistic hacks. In board meetings she was equally stalwart when anyone tried to take advantage of her colleagues under siege. Jeane was very American. I recall one gloomy night with her at dinner when the Spectator's prospects seemed bleak. Softly and wryly she sang a line from an old American folk song, "Nobody loves ya when you're down and out." And as the dinner progressed the fire she had shone on the floor at the United Nations ignited: "You stick to your guns." Only one other person fortified me with advice like that, Lady Thatcher, who asseverated, "If you have nothing else you have your principles."


Jeane was a fine writer with a gift for the memorable line: "San Francisco Democrats," or "blame America first." The validation of her political writing was on display the week she died, most notably the validation of her "Dictatorships and Double Standards." Three days after her death the right-wing dictator Augusto Pinochet died, as a private citizen at home in prosperous, democratic Chile. In Cuba the communist dictator Fidel Castro is about to die, still a dictator, still a menace to the democratic West, and about to hand over his despotism to his communist brother. Twenty-seven years ago Jeanne predicted such a scenario.


Of all her achievements her most precious, however, was her achievement as mother and wife. She was devoted to her sons and to her husband. At her funeral one of her surviving sons recalled her telling him, "My strength is your father." Friends suspected as much. She cited Kirk often. Her son recalls a more recent declaration from her. With eight decades of growing virtue in her wake but tired by a weakening heart, she told him that that she would die in the bedroom of her Maryland home before her next birthday. And so she did.

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 Bob Tyrrell is editor in chief of The American Spectator. Comment by clicking here.

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