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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 January 16, 2008 / 9 Shevat 5768

The Perils of Pandering

By Kathleen Parker

Kathleen Parker
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | It's not about race or gender, we keep hearing from the Democratic front-runners. Except of course it is about race and gender, even though both should be rendered irrelevant by virtue of the candidates' participation in the game.


Simply put: Identity politics is predicated on oppression. Yet it's hard to claim you're a victim when you're on top.


Both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton — Ivy League-educated U.S. senators — can't win for winning. Yet both have crafted their candidacies around the idea of overcoming historical obstacles and becoming firsts of their kind.


To cross that final frontier — to become the first woman or the first African-American to be nominated for president — each has to artfully tear down something of what their party has built up. Unavoidably, the white has to go after the black; the man has to attack the woman.


How to do that without inviting charges of sexism or racism is the trick and, thus far, Obama seems the better magician.


Matters are further complicated by the fact that Obama's attraction to black voters cuts a swath through a field the Clintons have been carefully cultivating for decades. No matter how many black church services they've attended, they can't compete on the pulpit with a real African-American candidate.


Despite their protests to the contrary, both Obama and Clinton have been playing to their respective demographics. Obama hasn't overtly made his campaign about race, but he didn't have to. In Clintonian tradition, he has let surrogates make the case for him. Oprah Winfrey laid it out plainly enough when she told a throng in Columbia, S.C.:


"We don't have to just dream the dream anymore. We get to vote that dream into reality. I believe that now is the time for somebody like Barack Obama."


"Somebody like Barack" and "the dream" don't require much elaboration. The dream was the Rev. Martin Luther King's, of a future when blacks and whites lived in harmony. And though Obama is unique in his broad appeal, Winfrey was clearly urging voters to put an African-American in the White House.


For her part, Clinton has insisted that women shouldn't vote for her just because of gender. "I am not asking you to vote for me because I am a woman," she told a crowd in New Hampshire. "I am asking you to vote for me because I believe I am the most qualified person to hit the ground running in 2009."


Except when she is urging women to vote for her because she's a woman. Speaking at her all-female alma mater, Wellesley College, Clinton called upon women to rally against "the all-boys club of presidential politics. We're ready to shatter that highest glass ceiling."


Obviously, and gratefully, Clinton will accept the woman vote and Obama will accept the black vote while professing a unified, color- and gender-blind vision. But to win, each has to borrow from the other's camp — Obama needs women and Clinton needs blacks.


And each risks losing the prize by going too negative, as Clinton recently learned when she dared trespass on the sacred territory of Dr. King. In trying to neutralize Obama's success as an orator and underscore his short list of accomplishments, she effectively said that Obama is no King.


Then she went too far and, noting that no matter King's own contributions, the Civil Rights Act required the signature of a president, in this case the Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson.


Whatever she meant — fair or not — that's a hole deep enough to bury Hillary's nomination and her husband's legacy.


We can be certain that Obama's surrogates will milk that mistake even as he and Clinton declare a public truce. And Clinton will continue to insist that she's not interested in defining her campaign as a gender issue even as she continues to invoke the glass ceiling, as she did yet again Sunday on "Meet the Press."


In the end, the Democratic Party may be hostage to its own noble intentions. By co-opting equality as their party's identity and making victimhood their rallying cry, the battle for race and gender necessarily has become a fight between race and gender.


If a Clinton victory is viewed as a victory for all women, then her defeat can only be viewed as a defeat for women. The same goes for Obama and African-Americans.


It shouldn't be about race and gender, but it is. And the Democratic Party made it this way.

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.

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