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Dec. 3, 2008

Steven Emerson: Yes, the terrorists are winning

Don Terry: Lifetime, no see

Dec. 2, 2008

Melanie Phillips: The Mumbai atrocity is a wake-up call for a frighteningly unprepared world

Stratfor Geopolitical Intelligence Report: Strategic Motivations for the Mumbai Attack

Dec. 1, 2008

Max Freidlander, as told to Jacklyn C. Wadler: India Inkings

Mark Steyn: Whodunit!?

Nov. 28, 2008

Rabbi Ahron Rapps: An evil seed that didn't have to be

Melanie Phillips: Carpe diem --- or can we all relax now?

Nov. 26, 2008

Michael Feldberg: Meet the Orthodox Jew who laid groundwork for scientific development of ordnance that undergirds America's current world leadership

Andrea Simantov: Shades of life

Nov. 25, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Getting Emotional For Influence

The Kosher Gourmet by Ethel G. Hofman : Thanksiving feast!

Nov. 24, 2008

Rabbi S. Binyomin Ginsberg: 'I just Became a grandchild!'

Barry Rubin: Don't flatter your enemies, protect your friends

Nov. 21, 2008

Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: Money matters?

Caroline B. Glick: Civilization walks the plank

Nov. 20, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: Bronfman's blindness

The Kosher Gourmet By Linda Gassenheimer: Portobellos add a hearty flavor to pasta with pesto

Nov, 19, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Spread the wealth? Jewish tradition and income equality

Elliot B. Gertel: 'Mad Men': Tackling prejudices or reinforcing them?

Nov, 18, 2008

Dr. Debby Schwarz Hirschhorn: The End of the Age of Reason

Jonathan Tobin: Does Barack + Bibi = Disaster?

Nov, 17, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The End of the Age of Reason

Diana West: Gulling Americans into making terror legit?

Nov, 14, 2008

Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: The Power of Spiritual Inertia

Caroline B. Glick: The perils ahead

Nov, 13, 2008

Stratfor Intelligence Briefing: How Bush and Obama together could change the Middle East dynamic

The Kosher Gourmet by JeanMarie Brownson: Sweet and savory, crispy and meltingly tender bestilla

Nov, 12, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Tyrannical Co-Workers

Michael Doyle: High Court to consider today donated monuments that may have religious messages in public parks

Nov, 11, 2008

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Will Obama stop government officials considering institutionalizing financial jihad?

Jonathan Tobin: They Will Decide Their Own Fate

Nov, 10, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: $8 billion, modern-day Tower of Babel being built?

Barry Rubin: A letter to the president-elect from a Middle East realist

Nov, 7, 2008

Rabbi Francis Nataf: Of Children and Immortality

Caroline B. Glick: Livni's Obama strategy

Nov, 6, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: How I tricked a classroom of apathetic students into grasping the fallacy of moral relativism

The Kosher Gourmet By Gina Kim: Tips for making the perfect soup --- includes recipes

Nov, 5, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Destitute Debtors

Bruce Weinstein: 'Religulos': Bad title,even worse movie

Nov, 4, 2008

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Treasury Dept. submits to Shariah law

Frida Ghitis: A surprise for Obama in the Middle East

Nov, 3, 2008

Jonathan Rosenblum: Who says Jews are Smart?

Jonathan Tobin: Was He Wrong About Everything?

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 August 8, 2005 / 3 Av, 5765

Cultures Aren't Equal

By Michael Barone


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Anyone who has been keeping up with British opinion since the July 7 bombings will have noticed that "multiculturalism" is under sharp attack. Multiculturalism preaches that we should allow and encourage immigrants and their children to maintain and celebrate their own culture apart from the national culture. Society should be not a melting pot but, in the phrase of former New York Mayor David Dinkins, "a gorgeous mosaic." That mosaic, of course, looked less gorgeous as people surveyed the work of the British-born-and-raised bombers.

In the past, Tony Blair has spoken favorably about multiculturalism. But on July 7, he struck a different note. "It is important, however, that the terrorists realize our determination to defend our values and our way of life is greater than their determination to cause the death and destruction of innocent people and impose their extremism on the world" (italics added). Sadly, the multiculturalist policies of Blair's Labor government and its Conservative predecessors gave refuge to preachers of Islamist hate in what some have called "Londonistan." Even before the bombings that prompted second thoughts, the chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality said, "We need to assert there is a core of Britishness," and the former home secretary introduced English-language tests for citizenship. Now the Blair government has moved to expel Muslim clerics who preach hatred and terrorism, and the left-wing Guardian fired a writer who was a member of Hizb ut-Tahrir, a radical group that advocates a "clash of civilization" and urges Muslims to kill Jews.

Imbalance. Writers in other tolerant countries have been noticing the blowback from multiculturalism. The Dutch novelist Leon de Winter wrote that as traditional Calvinist discipline frayed and Muslim immigrants rejected Dutch tolerance, "the delicate mechanism of Holland's traditional tolerant society gradually lost its balance."

In The Age, the Melbourne, Australia, newspaper, Pamela Bone wrote, "Perhaps it is time to say, you are welcome, but this is the way it is here." The Age 's Tony Parkinson quoted the French writer Jean Francois Revel's Cold War comment: "A civilization that feels guilty for everything it is and does will lack the energy and conviction to defend itself." Tolerating intolerance, goodhearted people are beginning to see, does not necessarily produce tolerance in turn.

The conservative Telegraph of London ran a series of articles on extolling Britishness and placed on its website the contributions, positive as well as a few negative, of dozens of citizens. The nonagenarian W.F. Deedes, a journalist since the 1930s, perhaps summed it up best: "The reputation we have in distant lands, I have learned in my travels, is higher than we give ourselves. They admire us for our social stability, our parliamentary and diplomatic experience, for fair play, for tolerance, for a willingness to help lame dogs over stiles, as well as for some of the qualities Shakespeare sang about in his plays." When I was in Britain for the election in May, I was surprised to hear nothing from Tony Blair (or other politicians) about Britain's positive contributions to the world. Now they are being heard.

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Multiculturalism is based on the lie that all cultures are morally equal. In practice, that soon degenerates to: All cultures all morally equal, except ours, which is worse. But all cultures are not equal in respecting representative government, guaranteed liberties, and the rule of law. And those things arose not simultaneously and in all cultures but in certain specific times and places—mostly in Britain and America but also in other parts of Europe.

In America, as in Britain, multiculturalism has become the fashion in large swaths of our society. So the Founding Fathers are presented only as slaveholders, World War II is limited to the internment of Japanese-Americans and the bombing of Hiroshima. Slavery is identified with America though it has existed in many societies, and the antislavery movement arose first among English-speaking evangelical Christians.

But most Americans know there is something special about our cultural heritage. While Harvard and Brown are replacing scholars of the founding period with those studying other things, book buyers are snapping up first-rate histories of the founders by David McCullough, Joseph Ellis, and Ron Chernow. Multiculturalist intellectuals do not think our kind of society is worth defending. But millions here and increasing numbers in Britain and other countries know better.

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.

BARONE'S LATEST
Hard America, Soft America: Competition vs. Coddling and the Battle for the Nation's Future  

America is divided into two camps, according to U.S. News and World Reports writer and Fox commentator Michael Barone. No, not Red and Blue, though one suspects Barone may taint the two groups in the hues of the 2000 presidential election. Barone's divided America is one part Hard, one part Soft. Hard America is steeled by the competition and accountability of the free market, while Soft America is the product of public school and government largesse. Inspired by the notion that America produces incompetent 18 year olds and remarkably competent 30 year olds, Barone embarks on a breezy 162-page commentary that will spark mostly huzzahs from the right and jeers from the left. Sales help fund JWR.

JWR contributor Michael Barone is a columnist at U.S. News & World Report. Comment by clicking here.




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