May 12, 2008 Chosen Words: A newsletter for personal and spiritual growth gleaned from classic biblical and other sources that will help you enhance your day to day life. Likely the most constructive three minutes you will spend today Mark Steyn: Israel's 'doom' could also be Europe's JWisdom: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: When Faith Meets Fate, Part One May 9, 2008 Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Reverence, Yes; Worship, No Mona Charen: Did Israel Drive Out the Arabs 60 Years Ago? JWisdom: Ultimate opportunities by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky May 8, 2008 Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Israel at 3,500+ Jonathan Tobin: Still Fighting the Same War Steven Plaut: How ‘nakba’ proves the fiction of a Palestinian Nation JWisdom: Taking Israel for Granted? by Rabbi Mordechai Becher May 7, 2008 Rabbi Hillel Goldberg: Israel is irrelevant to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict Dion Nissenbaum: Latest Olmert scandal could derail efforts to force Israel's compromises JWisdom: My Inner Ventriloquist by Sara Yoheved Rigler May 6, 2008 Caroline B. Glick: Anti-Zionism at 60 The Kosher Gourmet By Ethel G. Hofman: In honor of Israel's 60th anniversary, the former president of the International Association of Culinary Professionals, whose members included the likes of Julia Child, is back with a smorgasbord featuring the taste and essence of the Jewish homeland JWisdom: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Jewish Deer in Nazi Headlights May 5, 2008 The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Busy work Jonathan Mark: Remarkable half-century old Mike Wallace interview with Abba Eban puts current anti-Israel sentiment into perspective May 2, 2008 Rabbi Berel Wein: Rote religiosity Caroline B. Glick: Whitewashing Hamas JWisdom: Parent trap? May 1, 2008 David Zwiebel: Faith communities can learn from Orthodox Jews in stimulating private philanthropy for religious education George Friedman and Peter Zeihan of Stratfor: The Shift Toward an Israeli-Syrian Agreement JWisdom: It's time to wake up by Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis April 30, 2008 Jonathan Tobin: Pennsylvania's Democratic slugfest may leave some Jewish votes up for grabs The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: Fresh herbs, sauteed veal and tiny creamer potatoes makes a light spring dinner JWisdom: How to Build a Mentch by Rabbi Mordechai Becher April 29, 2008 Daniel Pipes: Barack Obama's Muslim Childhood Joel Brinkley: On human rights, the U.N. once again strikes out JWisdom: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: When The Truth is Unbelievable April 28, 2008 The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q: I'm often stuck in the doctor's waiting room for hours! Doesn't he owe me something for my wasted time? Steven Emerson: New U.S. government policy advises agencies to avoid using some of the very same words that make up terror groups' names JWisdom: Why You & I Never Die: A Jewish View of Immortality, Part I by Rabbi David Aaron April 25, 2008 Rabbi Mitchell Wohlberg: Schadenfreude isn't kosher for Passover --- or at any other time Rabbi Berel Wein: The secret of how the data bank of memory is transferred from one generation to the next JWisdom: Stepping Up to A Higher Spiritual Life by Rabbi Lawrence Kelemen, Part III April 24, 2008 Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: The successful failure Fred Burton and Scott Stewart of Stratfor: Placing the terrorist threat to the food supply in perspective JWisdom: Stepping Up to A Higher Spiritual Life by Rabbi Lawrence Kelemen, Part II April 23, 2008 Connie Ogle: An intricate game of a novel Jonathan Tobin: Making Sense of the 'J Street' Jive JWisdom: Stepping Up to A Higher Spiritual Life by Rabbi Lawrence Kelemen April 22, 2008 Jonathan Rosenblum: Why Israel's 'Leaven law' matters Caroline B. Glick: Obama the Savior April 18, 2008 Rabbi Harvey Belovski: Multimedia tool of antiquity Caroline B. Glick: Revealed Truths vs. revealed lies JWisdom: More than miracles by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky April 17, 2008 Rabbi Avi Shafran: Deconstructing Dayeinu Rabbi Elazar Meisels: Is innovation at the Seder a slap at tradition? JWisdom: Discovering Your Divine Mission, Part III by Rabbi David Aaron April 16, 2008 Jonathan Tobin: A Prayer for Sderot's Children Ethel G. Hofman: Sumptuous Seder JWisdom: The Divine is in the details by Rabbi Mordechai Becher April 15, 2008 Rabbi Dovid Zauderer: Let Charlton Heston Go! Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Jimma, tyranny's enabler JWisdom: Relationships: Beyond Mars & Venus, Part IV by Dr. Lisa Aiken April 14, 2008 The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: The Snitching Supervisor Jonathan Tobin: Forget the Fun and Games! JWisdom: Sincerity is Valued Most by Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski, M.D. April 11, 2008 Rabbi David Gutterman: A Mystery in the Middle East Caroline B. Glick: Why Ahmadinejad smiles JWisdom: Elevated illness by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky April 10, 2008 Stratfor Intelligence Briefing by George Friedman: A Mystery in the Middle East The Kosher Gourmet By Steve Petusevsky: The spring elegance of asparagus JWisdom: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith by Rabbi Nosson Scherman: The Power of Rational Lies April 9, 2008 Michael Feldberg: An all but forgotten Colonial doctor who put his Jewish values before his life Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkel's "Everything's Relative" gets philosophical JWisdom: Four Rabbis in Bnei Brak by Rabbi Mordechai Becher April 8, 2008 Caroline Glick: Covering for the enemy Elliot B. Gertel: 'House' goes Hasidic JWisdom: Relationships: Beyond Mars & Venus, Part III by Dr. Lisa Aiken April 7, 2008 The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q: I have a translating business. Recently someone asked me to translate some financial documents that are clearly forged. Should I agree? Jonathan Rosenblum : Israel is unwittingly helping to fuel the international campaign of delegitimization against it JWisdom: Matzah and leaven as a life philosophy by Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski, M.D. April 4, 2008 Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: The Mystery of Suffering Caroline B. Glick: Fear of democracy JWisdom: Dirty Jews by Rabbi Sroy Levitansky April 3, 2008 Rabbi Y. Y. Rubinstein: Parents --- and the children who would be them The Kosher Gourmet by Kathy Manweiler: Tempted by restaurant dressings? Don't be. Here are recipes that can be made at home, healthier! JWisdom: The importance of retaining a 'slave mentality' by Rabbi Mordechai Becher April 2, 2008 Mitch Albom: Child abuse, disguised as faith Jonathan Tobin: Unreasonable Accommodations JWisdom: Holocaust in the Perspective of Faith with Rabbi Nosson Scherman: Eliminating Jewish Influence over Germans 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 Nov. 18, 2004 / 5 Kislev, 5765 No seeds for Middle East peace By Suzanne Fields http://www.jewishworldreview.com | When my father died a decade ago an American friend planted 100 trees in Israel as a memorial: "For life, for hope, in honor, in memory." Even before Israel became a modern state in 1948, Jews from all over the world contributed money to plant trees in Israel as a gesture both practical and sacramental. As a little girl, I urged my parents' friends to drop coins in a blue and white box that sat in our foyer for contributions to plant trees in Israel. "We can make the desert green," I told them with the earnestness of a child. At our synagogue we were told that every planted tree was touched by human hands. That was important after 6 million Jews had died in the Holocaust. The trees symbolized fertility, growth and replacement. Tradition told us that trees were originally planted in ancient days as commemoration of the first temple in Jerusalem. Seen from the air, Israel is a plaid of fields and forests of green, claiming a promise for the future. What a pity that Muslims have no such promise for the state of Palestine. With the death of Yasser Arafat, the world is reminded of how his ideology of hate was as dry and as barren as the infertile desert. He delivered only terror, suicide bombers, death and destruction, soaking the land with blood. No flowers bloomed. Mr. Arafat professed that what he wanted to plant were seeds of peace, and gullible if well-meaning judges gave him the Nobel Peace Prize, a gesture of hope in the face of bitter experience. His deathbed became a scene of farce, with speculation not on what the Palestinians could do with the money he had collected over the years but how much his spoiled wife could spend in the shops of Paris. The estimates of the money Mr. Arafat had put away in Swiss and Caribbean bank accounts ran to the hundreds of millions of dollars. The Palestinians stuck in the miserable refugee camps were always instruments only of Mr. Arafat's power. Better for him that the Palestinians should live in poverty than in a state where they could flourish and prosper. Palestinian poverty became a public-relations weapon. The generous offer made at Camp David in 2000, the best his people could ever expect — 97 percent of what he had asked, by one estimate — was turned down in an exercise of breathtaking cynicism. Cruel though he was to the Israelis, his abuse of power was even more hurtful to his own people. He deprived them of a peace delivered through politics unaccompanied by death and destruction. He nevertheless manipulated world opinion with a boffo performance before a world eager to be manipulated. "The very fact of his longevity gives the lie to Arafat's contrived image of noble weakness," observes Mario Loyola in the Weekly Standard. "He survived in a political landscape of thugs and murderers because they all knew that he was one of them. A weak man would not have survived." When leftist students here and in Europe were left as rebels without a cause with the end of the Vietnam War, the Palestinians replaced the Viet Cong as romantic revolutionaries. Hatred is a powerful narcotic for intellectuals, particularly those who live comfortably in the embrace of the campuses. Anti-Semitism lost its cachet at the end of World War II, but anti-Zionism neatly replaced it beneath what Bernard Lewis, the Middle Eastern scholar, called "the veil of respectability." Although anti-Zionism is not always the equivalent of anti-Semitism, sometimes it is. Mr. Arafat manipulated that, too. In 1975, a year after he addressed the United Nations with a pistol strapped ostentatiously to his hip, the delegates adopted a resolution declaring that "Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination." In 2001, 3,000 non-governmental organizations at the United Nations World Conference on Racism declared Israel to be a "racist apartheid state" and guilty of "war crimes, acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing," deleting all clauses that opposed anti-Semitism. At Mr. Arafat's death Jacques Chirac, the president of France, celebrated him as "a man of courage and conviction," showing no shame in a country where Frenchmen are still being exposed as having willingly participated in the Holocaust. The man of "courage and conviction" planted no trees, but poisoned a generation deprived of a hope for peace. Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in Washington and in the media consider "must reading." Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here. Comment on JWR contributor Suzanne Fields' column by clicking here. © 2004, Suzanne Fields. TMS