Nov. 20, 2009 Rabbi David Aaron: How to make every second of your life come first Caroline B. Glick: Whither American Jewry Nov. 19, 2009 Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Please Listen to this Godcast (5 minutes) Jonathan Tobin: ADL Crosses the Line with Report Bashing Obama Critics Nov. 18, 2009 Rabbi Yonason Goldson: What Judaism has to say about the secret of the Mona Lisa's smile JWisdom.com: The (Jewish) Dating Game with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes) Nov. 17, 2009 Steven Emerson: How Does the 4th Amendment Impact Terror Finance Investigations? JWisdom.com: If Frank Sinatra married Edith Piaf with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein (2 minutes) Life lessons from what would be regarded as the most inappropriate lyrics ever sung Nov. 16, 2009 The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : When borrowing is stealing JWisdom.com: Deconstructing faith with Rabbi Warren Goldstein (9 minutes) Nov. 13, 2009 JWisdom.com Sarah's subjective reality with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 6 minutes) Caroline B. Glick: Obama's failure, Netanyahu's opportunity Nov. 12, 2009 The Kosher Gourmet By Marialisa Calta : A sweet sweet potato treat JWisdom.com Does God get tired? with Rabbi Harvey Belovski ( 5 minutes) Nov. 11, 2009 Rabbi Avi Shafran: Jews and money: When anti-Semitism isn't JWisdom.com Marriages are not made in Heaven with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (VERY fast 15 minutes) Nov. 10, 2009 Michael Doyle: Author of book exposing CAIR ordered to remove supporting documents from Web JWisdom.com If the creation so loudly shouts the existence of the Creator, why aren't more people believers? with Rabbi Naftali Brawer (9 minutes) Nov. 9, 2009 Mark Steyn: Shooter exposes hole in U.S. terror strategy JWisdom.com It's never too late to have a happy childhood with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes) Nov. 6, 2009 Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes) Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man Nov. 5, 2009 The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes) Nov. 4, 2009 Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered? JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes) Nov. 3, 2009 Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes) Nov. 2, 2009 Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes) Oct. 29, 2003 Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review Dec. 30, 2005 / 29 Kislev, 5766 2006 is shaping up to be the ‘Year of Speaking Dangerously’ By Diana West http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Now that Baby New Year is taking over again from Father Time, the observant celebrant might notice something new. In addition to the traditional top hat and diaper, and besides the 2006 banner across his chest, Baby New Year has something else in his kit: a gag. That's because 2006 is shaping up to be the "Year of Speaking Dangerously." This isn't to suggest that 2005 was a banner year for freedom of speech. But the reaction, tepid at best, to significantly outrageous cases of speech repression during this past year, from Bangladesh to Paris, indicates only one thing: 2006 will be worse. Take our old friend (making his third appearance in this column) Ali Mohaqeq Nasab, the Afghan editor sentenced in October to two years hard labor. His crime, you may recall, was "blasphemy" — i.e., publishing articles that criticized Islamic law. The magazine he edited questioned the death penalty for converting from Islam; amputation and whippings for certain crimes; and relegating women to legal inferiority. Given that such viewpoints promised to make Islamic reform a topic of debate in post-Taliban Afghanistan, Mr. Nasab's incarceration should have created one of those international incidents you read about, or at least a journalistic cause celebre. But no. In virtual global silence — not a healthy atmosphere for free speech — Mr. Nasab was left to the non-tender mercies of a Kabul prosecutor seeking the death penalty for those "un-Islamic" articles. And now? Here's an update from The Washington Post: "After refusing for three months to retract his statements, Nasab told an appeals court this week that he was sorry for printing stories that asserted that women should be given equal status to men in court, questioned the use of physical punishments for crimes and suggested converts from Islam should not face execution." In other words, he was sorry for calling for equality of the sexes. He was sorry for calling for a more humane concept of punishment. He was sorry for calling for freedom of conscience. I'm sorry he was sorry. But having apologized in a Kabul courtroom, Mr. Nasab is now a free man. Or as free as a man can be "under the watch of the government" — as the senior judge in the case told Reuters — "to make sure he does not repeat what he has written." That's one way to gag a journalist, not to mention his peers. Already, an Afghan human rights proponent told the Post, journalists are saying they "have to be very, very careful in the way that they talk." Which is probably nothing our troops in Afghanistan thought they were fighting for. But no one in the West seems too broken up about it. Then again, maybe no one really cares whether freedom of expression is an attribute of 21st-century civilization after all. The flip side of the Nasab story — flip side of the globe, anyhow — makes this clear. The last time we checked in with "Jyllands-Posten," the Danish newspaper that ran 12 rather tame cartoons of Muhammad to prove that an Islamic religious injunction against depicting the Islamic prophet didn't apply in a sovereign Western nation, it was bearing up under Islamic street protests and bomb threats, diplomatic attack, and a likely U.N. human rights commission investigation. And so was Denmark. Danes had been warned away from Pakistan, where bounties were placed on the cartoonists' heads; Kashmir was the scene of anti-Dane rioting; and Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen was under intense pressure to apologize for, and/or meddle with Denmark's freedom of the press. Amazingly — inspirationally — in this age of the about-face, neither the newspaper nor the prime minister has apologized for upholding free speech. Now, the cartoons have drawn fire from both the Council of Europe and the European Union. The U.N. human rights commission has actually demanded "an official explanation," directing the Danish government to respond to the question, "Do the caricatures insult or discredit?" (This, frankly, presents Denmark with rather a meager choice.) Also, 22 former Danish diplomats have rapped the prime minister for not meeting Muslim diplomats who demanded to discuss the cartoons. As a spokesman for the prime minister explained, "It doesn't serve any purpose to enter into a dialogue to stop the democratic process." Well said, Denmark, and thanks for keeping the light of liberty burning. What's needed is dialogue to jumpstart the democratic process, particularly when it comes to, well, dialogue. Ideas. Analysis. Even cartoons. The question is, who, in 2006, will speak up for free speech? 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. JWR contributor Diana West is a columnist and editorial writer for the Washington Times. Comment by clicking here. Diana West Archives © 2005, Diana West

Arnold Ahlert  Mitch Albom  Michael Barone   Dave Barry  Tony Blankley  Andy Borowitz  David Broder  Stratfor Briefing  Mona Charen  Linda Chavez  Ann Coulter  Greg Crosby  Larry Elder  Suzanne Fields  John Fund  Frank J. Gaffney  Lloyd Garver  Jonah Goldberg  Julia Gorin  Jonathan Gurwitz  Paul Greenberg  Lewis Grossberger  Victor Davis Hanson  Betsy Hart  Nat Hentoff  David Horowitz  Laura Ingraham  Cheri Jacobus Jeff Jacoby  Paul Johnson  Jack Kelly  Ed Koch  Ch. Krauthammer  Michael Ledeen  John Leo  David Limbaugh  Kathryn Lopez  Rich Lowry  Michelle Malkin  Jackie Mason  Dick Morris  Bill O'Reilly  Jim Mullen  Clarence Page  Kathleen Parker  Dennis Prager  Wesley Pruden  Tom Purcell  Jonathan Rauch  Celia Rivenbark  Robert Robb  Cokie & Steve Roberts  Pat Sajak  Debra J. Saunders  Culture Shlock  Roger Simon  Michael Smerconish  Thomas Sowell  Mark Steyn  John Stossel  Cal Thomas  Bob Tyrrell  Diana West  Dave Weinbaum  George Will  Walter Williams  Byron York  Mort Zuckerman  Robert Arial  Chuck Asay  Baloo  Chip Bok  Dry Bones   Lisa Benson  John Branch  Gary Brookins  John Cole  J. D. Crowe  John Deering  Brian Duffy  Everything's Relative  Mallard Fillmore  Jake Fuller  Bob Gorrel  Joe Heller  David Hitch  Jerry Holber  Steve Kelley  Jeff Koterba  Dick Locher  Chan Lowe  Ranan R. Lurie  Jimmy Margulies  Rick McKee  Michael Ramirez  Kevin Siers  Jeff Stahler  Ed Stein  Danna Summers  John Trever  Gary Varvel  Kirk Walters  How 2  Lori Borgman  The Savvy Consumer  Elder matters  Fixit  Dr. Peter Gott  GET A JOB! by Marty Nemko  Richard Lederer  Tech Maven  Every Monday Matters  Nutrition Myths  Bookmark These  Bruce Williams  How Stuff Works