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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 Feb. 14, 2008 / 8 Adar I 5768

Immigrant, soldier, citizen

By Jeff Jacoby

Jeff Jacoby
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | One of the most glaring missed opportunities of George W. Bush's presidency was his failure to begin rebuilding the US military immediately after 9/11. At that hour of national solidarity and resolve, the president should have called for expanding the armed forces that had been so sharply reduced during the holiday from history that followed the end of the Cold War. He didn't, and the current crisis in military readiness is the result.


This problem didn't begin with Bush. During the Clinton years, the number of active military personnel had been slashed by half a million — the Army shrank by more than 200,000 troops, a 30 percent cut, while the Marines took a hit of 22,000. Even before 9/11, American forces were feeling the stress from that downsizing. Today, with wars blazing in Iraq and Afghanistan, the military is stretched almost to the breaking point, in dire need of more troops and resorting to desperate measures to attract them.


The Army has been forced to lower its standards for new recruits, accepting volunteers who lack high school diplomas or score poorly on the military aptitude test. A growing number of new soldiers have medical problems; others require "moral waivers" because of past criminal activity or drug abuse.


The age of enlistment has been raised to 42, and signing and retention bonuses have grown more lavish. The Boston Globe reported last week on a new Army program that will provide up to $40,000 toward a new home or business in exchange for four years of military service.


Reinstating the draft would be one way to fill the ranks, but public opinion sharply opposes a return to military conscription. (Congressional opinion, too: In 2004, the House of Representatives voted 402-2 against a bill to restore the draft.) Yet even with loosened standards, richer bonuses, and more aggressive recruiting, it is hard to imagine that anything short of another 9/11-scale attack is going to induce the scores of thousands of young Americans the military needs to voluntarily join the armed forces.


So why not open the service to non-Americans?


US military service has never been restricted to US citizens. More than 40,000 non-citizens currently serve in the armed forces, nearly all of them permanent legal residents ("green card" holders). Federal law provides an expedited naturalization process for members of the military, and more than 26,000 immigrant-soldiers have become citizens since 2001. Indeed, the US Citizenship and Immigration Service has conducted naturalization ceremonies at military posts worldwide, including Camp Anaconda in Afghanistan, Camp Victory in Iraq, aboard the USS Kitty Hawk in the Sea of Japan, and along the DMZ in South Korea.


But the ability to earn American citizenship through military service needn't be limited to legal immigrants. Among the millions of illegal immigrants living in the United States are an estimated 750,000 young men and women of military age, many of whom would welcome the opportunity to become US citizens in return for serving in the armed forces. Expanding the recruitment pool to include them would make it easier for the military to build up its ranks without having to lower its standards. And what better way for illegal immigrants to come "out of the shadows" and assimilate fully into American life than by wearing their adopted country's uniform in wartime?


Some experts argue persuasively for going even further. Max Boot, a scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations, and Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, recommend opening military service not just to immigrants already here but to would-be immigrants elsewhere. By offering US citizenship to highly qualified foreigners willing to serve a four-year hitch in the military, they wrote in The Washington Post in 2006, "we could continue to attract some of the world's most enterprising, selfless, and talented individuals." Such international recruits "would also address one of America's key deficiencies in the battle against Islamic extremists: our lack of knowledge of the languages and mores in the lands where terrorists reside."


It is a truism that the United States cannot absorb every foreigner who might wish to live here. But surely foreigners willing to put their lives at risk in defense of this country are just the sort of patriotic immigrants we should welcome with open arms.


For more than two centuries, noncitizens have taken up arms on behalf of the United States. Some, like the French Marquis de Lafayette and the Polish engineer Thaddeus Kosciusko, became heroes of the American Revolution.


Others are remembered only by historians. Boot notes that during the Civil War, one of every five Union soldiers was an immigrant. There were even some units, he adds, such as the 15th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry — known as the Scandinavian Regiment — and the German Division commanded by General Louis Blenker, "where English was hardly spoken."


At home and around the world, there are men and women who would jump at the chance to serve in the American armed forces in exchange for American citizenship. It's a deal we ought to take.

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.

Jeff Jacoby is a Boston Globe columnist. Comment by clicking here.

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