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 Nov. 4, 2005 / 2 Mar-Cheshvan, 5766 The Jury Is Out By Gene Weingarten . . . of the Question. Thoughts on how not to get picked http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | I recently had a chance to serve as a juror on a first-degree murder trial—I was in the pool from which the jury was selected. But right from the start, things did not go well. I became instantly suspect to the defense lawyer as soon as I disclosed that my wife is a federal prosecutor. And I became instantly suspect to the prosecutor as soon as he saw me: I have a '60s-era mustache and '60s-era hair, giving me the look of a man who might well accept, as a murder defense, "the munchies." I think I still had the judge in my corner, though, until he asked me if I had ever written about the court system. "Well, I write humor," I said, looking up at him pleasantly, hoping that would suffice. It wouldn't. And I was under oath. ". . . So, uh, I naturally have to write about the courts from time to time." This little operation you got here? It's a hoot! (I'm pretty sure that's how he heard it, based on how quickly he dispatched me back to my seat.) Still, I got to sit in the courtroom for a while and watch other people be selected for the jury. The whole process is instructive. For example, when the defendant is accused of murder, serious courtroom security is desirable. But, apparently, the security cannot be too obvious, on the theory that it might prejudice the jurors against a defendant if they thought that, without supervision, he might leap from his chair and take one of them hostage with a cafeteria fork. And so there was a tough-looking guy seated behind the defendant, in a place where lawyers customarily sit. I think he was trying to look like a lawyer, because he wore a suit. But it was a shiny suit with a chest bulge, and he also wore an expression as flat as last Thursday's mug of beer. If he was a lawyer, he was a lawyer with a colorful nickname in quotation marks (e.g., "The Squid") who owns a Queens, N.Y., trash-compacting and olive-oil-importing business. The defendant also wore a suit. Evidently, defendants are encouraged to wear suits, even when it is most likely the first suit they have ever worn, even when they look every bit as comfortable in it as a corpse in a casket. (The prospective juror seated next to me mentioned that she had once been in a courtroom where the defendant wore a real nice suit but his shoes were prison-issue cardboard slippers. Our justice system is good, not perfect.) At one point, the judge directed a series of questions to the pool of prospective jurors, asking us to stand if our answer was: Yes. "Have you ever been a victim of a crime?" "Do you have religious problems sitting in judgment of people?" And so forth. Then, to ascertain whether anyone was insufficiently fluent in English, he asked: "Is there anybody who cannot understand me?" He asked this in English. No one stood up. If anyone did, wouldn't it be prima facie evidence of perjury? One of the prospective jurors looked exactly like Laurence Olivier playing the evil Nazi dentist in "Marathon Man." When he got called to the bench, I half-expected him to ask the judge: "Is it zafe?" I don't know if he did because the jury cannot hear this portion of the proceedings. The judge pushes a button, and a loud, staticky noise drowns out the conversation at the bench. This is exactly like snow on a TV screen, except you have no remote and can't switch the station, and after a while you would happily trade it for any programming at all, even "Saturday Night Live" during the Joe Piscopo era. Eventually, the jury got seated after a lengthy tug of war between the prosecutor and the defense lawyer, each of whom was exercising his "peremptory challenges." This appears to be a legal term for the defense excluding white jurors and the prosecution excluding black jurors. That's against the rules, but the judge seems never to notice, like at a pro wrestling match where the ref never notices that the bad guy's manager is hitting the good guy over the head with a chair. The whole thing took an entire day, and when it was over, I could see pride and excitement and awe on the faces of the surviving jurors, who had triumphed in a grueling but glorious ritual as old as the republic. They remained proud and delighted and awed for a few hours, when they were disbanded. Procedural screw-up. As Emily Litella would say during a better era of SNL: Never mind. 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. Gene Weingarten writes the Below the Beltway humor column for The Washington Post. To comment, please click here. Archives © 2005 WPWG

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