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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 10, 2008 / 3 Shevat 5768

New Hampshire fallout

By Michael Barone


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | A very interesting night at the Fox News Decision Desk in New York. I had expected New Hampshire to vote, as I put it to an E-mail correspondent, "Obama big, McCain close with a nontrivial chance of Romney." This was a pretty reasonable extrapolation from the preprimary polls for the Democrats and the Republicans. It turned out that the Republican numbers (John McCain 32, Mitt Romney 28) were not far from the mark; the final score was McCain over Romney 37 to 32. But the Democratic numbers were way off. Hillary Clinton led Barack Obama 39 to 37 percent. Obama got a little less than his 38 percent average in the polls, Clinton far more than her 30 average.


Fox was able to call the Republican race not long after 8 p.m. — rather earlier than I expected. The numbers lined up in predictable ways, with McCain running behind his 2000 performance, when he beat George W. Bush 48 to 30 percent here but not enough so as to leave the subject in doubt. Romney carried cities and towns on and near the Massachusetts border, whose residents (or at least their Republican primary voting residents) don't want to make Massachusetts more like New Hampshire but vice versa. But McCain carried (at least with nine of 12 wards reporting) Manchester and won big margins in the more outlying parts of the state.


Where does the Republican race go from here? One answer is to Michigan, which votes next Tuesday. There's no Democratic contest there: The Democratic National Committee forbade its candidates from competing, out of deference to that provision of the Constitution (which I've never managed to find in the text) saying that Iowa and New Hampshire vote first by several days if not several weeks; Obama's and John Edwards's names are off the ballots, while Clinton's is still on. She won't get credit (or, in the short run, delegates) for a big win but could be hurt a bit if there are a lot of Obama (or, more unlikely, Edwards) write-ins cast against her.


The important point here is that there will be a large body of self-identified independents and Democrats with a motive to vote in the Republican primary. Not as many as in 2000, I suspect, when 40 percent of Republican primary voters were self-identified independents, and an astonishing 20 percent were self-identified Democrats. There was a dynamic going on there then that is not present now. Incumbent Gov. John Engler, after 10 years of successfully smashing Democrats, was supporting George W. Bush and clearly lusting after a high position in a Bush 43 administration. His Democratic enemies, many in number, saw a way of denying it to him: vote for McCain, who in any case was to many of them an attractive figure on his own merits. So they did. But Engler is now long departed from Michigan, and McCain cannot depend on this constituency this time. Indeed, his 2008 percentage in New Hampshire (37 percent) was visibly lower than his 2000 percentage there (48, against fewer serious candidates). In any case, McCain has serious claims on the votes of Michigan Republicans, as does Romney, whose father was governor from 1963 to 1968. It will be an interesting contest in a state that has never found a satisfying middle ground between holding a primary (there is no party registration) and holding something in the nature of a caucus.


The dynamic I see in the Republican race is this: Five candidates have reason, from their own points of view, to continue their candidacies and no motive to stop anytime soon:


  • Mike Huckabee won the Iowa caucuses and has some reasonable prospects in South Carolina on January 19.

  • Romney, having won "the silver" in Iowa and New Hampshire and being in possession of a checkbook with $50 million in liquid funds, will contest Michigan and has no motive not to continue if he doesn't win there.

  • McCain, celebrating his win in New Hampshire, gave a speech that was in the nature of accepting the mantle of national leadership, and plausibly so.

  • Fred Thompson, absent from tonight's television but fresh from a fine appearance on Fox News's Sunday night debate, has no motive to withdraw to private life.

  • Nor does Rudy Giuliani, whose sterling policy achievements and unforgettable leadership after the September 11 attacks may still resonate as they did in the first half of 2007 but have not, at least in presidential polls, in the past two months.


So on we go, to Michigan on January 15, South Carolina and Nevada on January 19, Florida on January 29, and 22 states on February 5. I wrote a few days ago that there were 60 scenarios for the Republican nomination. I think we're down to about 52 — down but not out.

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