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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 April 3, 2008 / 27 Adar II 5768

Facing the truth about jihadist violence

By Jeff Jacoby

Jeff Jacoby
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | The global jihad is unpleasant. Consequently "Fitna," the controversial new film about the Koran and jihadist violence produced by the Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders, is also unpleasant. Parts of it are graphic and violent, and you might find it difficult to watch.


But watch it you should, if only to remind yourself of two things the media are generally too intimidated or politically correct to dwell on: Jihadists are waging a bloody and barbaric war, and they are waging it with explicit reference to their religion.


Wilders's 16-minute film intersperses quotations from the Koran with scenes of Islamist atrocities, such as the Al-Qaeda attacks on New York and Madrid, the beheading of Nick Berg, and the "honor killing" of women. To drive home the point that such horrors are committed in the name of Islam by fervent Muslims, "Fitna" includes footage of Islamic preachers exhorting their followers to crush the infidels. ("Throats must be slit and skulls must be shattered," urges one. "This is the path to victory.") There are also clips indicating how pervasive such hateful indoctrination can be: In a scene aired on Saudi TV, a 3-year-old girl repeats what she has been taught: that according to the Koran, Jews are apes and pigs.


Yet what has been controversial about "Fitna" is not the abhorrent behavior it depicts, but that Wilders links such behavior to the Koran. Why that should be so notorious is unclear - after all, the jihadists themselves emphatically cite the Koran to justify their violence.


Nevertheless, "Fitna" has been widely condemned. The Dutch prime minister issued statements in Dutch and English saying the film "serves no other purpose than to cause offense." UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon pronounced it "offensively anti-Islamic." The European Union's Slovenian presidency blasted it for "inflaming hatred.


From the Muslim world, naturally, came denunciations as well. Reuters reported that Iran's foreign ministry labeled the film "heinous, blasphemous, and anti-Islamic." The Indonesian government declared it "an insult to Islam." In Jordan, 53 members of parliament demanded the expulsion of the Dutch ambassador. The Organization of the Islamic Conference denounced "Fitna" as "a deliberate act of discrimination against Muslims" meant to "provoke unrest and intolerance."


Granted, there is nothing subtle about Wilders's film. Anyone who didn't know better might think after watching it that Islam is irredeemably violent, or that all Muslims seethe with religious hatred. Neither is true. "Like all great religions," the scholar Daniel Pipes has written, "Islam is subject to a number of interpretations . . . The terroristic jihad against the West is one reading of Islam, but it is not the eternal essence of Islam." Zealots who insist that Islam itself is the enemy condemn us, in effect, to a war without end. They also betray the anti-Islamist moderates of the Muslim world, who are as repelled by the fanatics as non-Muslims are.


Still, it isn't as though Wilders had to invent anything. The violence "Fitna" portrays is horribly real, and the fanatics who commit it are explicit in saying they do so as Muslims.


Where is the Islamic world's outrage against that? When has Iran's foreign ministry ever excoriated the beheading of a hostage, or the poisonous sermon of a jihadist imam, as "heinous, blasphemous, and anti-Islamic?" How often has the Organization of the Islamic Conference thundered its disapproval of "honor killings" or Islamist anti-semitism? When Theo van Gogh was murdered in public, when the Taliban turned Afghanistan into a repressive terror state, when fatwas were issued for the murder of Danish cartoonists - where was the chorus of Muslim anguish then?


Nor is "Fitna," whatever its flaws, as dangerously misguided as the eagerness with which Western governments rushed to denounce it. Panicked at the prospect of Islamist violence, desperate to appease extremists who respond to "insults" with mobs and mayhem, they ostentatiously deplored Wilders's exercise of free speech instead of defending it. They would never have reacted that way to a film that criticized Christianity or the United States or European tradition - and the Islamists know it.


Cringing before bullies is not the way to defend Western civilization. There is room for "Fitna" in the marketplace of ideas. Heaven help us if we are too timorous to say so.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many 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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