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In this issue
March 19, 2010
Rabbi Berel Wein: The Divine is in the details
JWisdom.com Stewards of sacrifice with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Why Obama is waging war on Israel
March 18, 2010
Cal Thomas: Israel's New Enemy: America?
JWisdom.com Love me not? with Rabbi David Aaron (5 minutes)
Jonathan Rosenblum: Washington Throws a Tantrum
March 17, 2010
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Orwell, Santayana, and Me
Jonathan Tobin: How Many Lives Is Biden's Pride Worth?
March 16, 2010
Steven Emerson: Combating Lawfare
JWisdom.com How to perform a miracle with Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair (4 minutes)
Anne Bayefsky: Behind Obama's Dangerous Overreaction on Israel
March 15, 2010
The Jewish Ethicist By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Father's obligations toward minor children
JWisdom.com Moody, Grumpy, Irritable Children with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Judith Graham: Get the whole picture before a CT
March 12, 2010
Rabbi David Aaron: You CAN have Heaven on Earth
JWisdom.com Manufacturing mediums with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: The march of the Red-Green brigades
March 11, 2010
Glenn Garvin: Conspiracy theories, why people believe them and how they spread
JWisdom.com For Yourself, Not By Yourself with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer : Turn leftovers into tasty New England hash
Paul Richter: Biden promises 'viable Palestine' is in the offing
March 10, 2010
Paul Greenberg: Death Checks In
JWisdom.com How To Get A (Real) Life with Rabbi Warren Goldstein ( EXTENDED EPISODE)
Paul Richter: Israel exerts soverign right to its capital as Biden looks on astounded
Richard A. Serrano: 'Jihad Jane' indictment alleges threat from within U.S.
March 9, 2010
Wesley Pruden: Joe's Israeli adventure
JWisdom.com Free To Be (Responsibly) You and Me! with Rabbi Naftali Brawer ( 8 MINUTES)
David G. Savage: Supreme Court to rule on free speech in case of soldier's funeral
March 8, 2010
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Make a fuss about those who cuss?
JWisdom.com Finding or Losing Yourself? Here's How! with Rabbi David Aaron ( 5 MINUTES)
Steven Emerson: America must learn from the UK about the future of Islamist subversion
March 5, 2010
Rabbi Berel Wein: Golden Calf still with us --- except it has multiplied
JWisdom.com The Limits of Eternity with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 MINUTES)
Caroline B. Glick: Biden's lost cause
March 4, 2010
Alan M. Dershowitz: How About A Real Campaign Against Abuses?
JWisdom.com Using Things, Loving People with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff ( 7 MINUTES)
Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkel's Everything's Relative
March 3, 2010
JWisdom.com Grasping The Name of Your Life Game with Rabbi Warren Goldstein ( 8 MINUTES)
The Kosher Gourmet by Marialisa Calta : A cowboy's recipes for really good grub
March 2, 2010
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Someone's there
Diane Toroian Keaggy : Have we misunderstood Michelangelo?
March 1, 2010
JWisdom.com Whole in One with Rabbi David Aaron ( 5 MINUTES)
Michael Muskal: Hillary meets with Israeli official, discusses gefilte fish dispute
Feb. 26, 2010
Rabbi Francis Nataf: The Megilla of Spring
JWisdom.com A Biblical Secret for a More Powerful You with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 MINUTES)
Caroline B. Glick: When rhetoric rules the roost
Feb. 25, 2010
The Jewish Ethicist By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: When walking away from your mortgage is both economically sound and makes ethical sense
JWisdom.com The Second Most Important Question in Your Life with Rabbi Yehoshua Karsh ( 5 MINUTES)
Seema Mehta : U.S.-Israel relations raised in California's Senate race --- by conservatives
Feb. 24, 2010
Rabbi Avi Shafran: The gift of the ‘prayer bomber’
Steven Emerson: Why Religious Freedom Commission is under attack
Feb. 23, 2010
Dennis Prager: Government, Yes! The Divine and Parents, No!
JWisdom.com The Last Laugh of Enlightenment with Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair ( 5 MINUTES)
Anne Applebaum: Prepare for war with Iran --- in case Israel strikes
Feb. 22, 2010
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Is it not refreshing Tiger Woods' career has crashed and burned so dramatically?
JWisdom.com Esther and the third Truth with Rabbi David Aaron ( 9 MINUTES)
Kelly Brewington: Going smoke-free may raise diabetes risk
Feb. 19, 2010
Rabbi David Aaron: Is the Divine beyond us or within us?
JWisdom.com Olympic Faith with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 MINUTES)
Caroline B. Glick: Israel and the West are perpetrators of a myth that endangers the Jewish State
Feb. 18, 2010
Cal Thomas: Who is Rashad Hussain?
JWisdom.com A Wedding Disaster to Remember with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein ( 3 MINUTES)
Feb. 17, 2010
JWisdom.com Think your life is messed up? with Rabbi David Aaron ( 11 MINUTES)
Greg Logan: 'Greatest Jewish sporting event of all time since David versus Goliath' may be postponed because of bar mitzvah
Feb. 16, 2010
Anya Martin : Boy's 'cerebral palsy' fixed with diet
JWisdom.com Feet On The Street Spirituality with Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 8 MINUTES)
Marty Peretz: Let Europe Mind Its Own Business. It Brings Nothing To The Table Save For Mischief
Feb. 15, 2010
Herb Geduld: Lincoln and the Jews
JWisdom.com Are Our Children Really Ours? with Rabbi Mordechai Becher ( 5 MINUTES)
Susan King: 'Wolf Man' reflected writer's wartime Jewish experience

Jewish World Review Feb. 7, 2008 1 Adar I 5768

John McCain as Judah Maccabee?

By Suzanne Fields


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | John McCain is a New York Giant, not a New England Patriot. He has never come close to a perfect season, but like Eli Manning, he believes he can do it even if nobody else does. Super Tuesday was not quite the Super Bowl — that comes in November. But the senator has the Big Mo, and that counts for a lot in politics as well as football. Now we'll see if he can show the Manning touch, moving down the field.


Other analogies thrive. Joe Lieberman, who was at John McCain's side Tuesday night, thinks his colleague might be Judah Macabee, a reference to the warrior whose victory over the Greeks is commemorated in the celebration of Hanukkah. "He's got that spirit," Sen. Lieberman told the Forward, the national Jewish weekly newspaper in New York. The Connecticut senator is credited with helping not only with the Jewish turnout for McCain in Florida, but for helping with the Cubans, who aren't Jewish, too.


Sen. McCain, lacking wide and deep support from the conservative true believers, will have to make up for it with his tested appeal to independents and Hispanics, and hope the true believers will overcome whatever impulse they have to sulk. There's one other important group he might tap into as well. Ever since FDR created the New Deal, which his critics called the "Jew Deal" because so many of his brain trusters were Jews, the Jewish vote has mostly been taken for granted by Democrats. Ronald Reagan persuaded more Jews than usual to vote Republican, but when Al Gore took Joe Lieberman as his running mate Jewish voters returned to the Democrats in droves. Now that may change.


The two senators go back a long way, working on legislative issues together, sharing the worldview that Sen. Lieberman describes as "a feeling that America has a unique role in the world, of taking the Declaration of Independence seriously…[as] a universal declaration of human rights." That means "our foreign policy is always better when it's based on democratic values." The two men became even closer when the United States intervened in Bosnia and more recently in support of the surge in Iraq. Sen. Lieberman endorsed his friend before he was a front-runner, drawn by the McCain emphasis on foreign policy.


What is less well known as an element in the affinity the two senators share is an appreciation of evangelical Christians, for their evangelical support for Israel and for trying to hold a line of decency against vulgarity and the glorification of violence in the popular culture. Prying older Jews away from their loyalty to the Democrats — Jews, like Southerners of an earlier time, are the most the loyal of yellow dog Democrats — but younger Jews hold no such blind loyalty. FDR, like Charlemagne and Richard the Lionheart is ancient history. "Mac the Maverick" is 21st century.


Many Jewish voters, for all their loyalty to the party of the New Deal, appreciate Sen. McCain's fervent support for the surge in Iraq, understanding that it's all of a piece with a clear-eyed view of what's at stake in the Middle East. They can appreciate the McCain appraisal of Vladimir Putin, contributor of Iran's nuclear capability: "I looked into his eyes and I saw three letters — a K, a G and a B." Transferring allegiance from Rudy Giuliani, with his national security bona fides, to John McCain might not be difficult.


Most Jews are registered Democrats, of course, and Hillary and Obama are courting them aggressively. Hillary won most of them in Florida, Nevada, New Jersey and California, but according to exit polls Barack Obama won them in Connecticut and Massachusetts. The memory of Hillary's kiss for Yasser Arafat's wife Suha in 1999, after she accused Israel of poisoning Palestinian women and children, is still fresh in the memory of many Jews.


When doubts were raised last week about the strength of Sen. Obama's resolve in the Middle East, he called several Jewish reporters to reiterate his "pro-Israel positions," his defense of Israeli security and repeated his insistence that Hamas must recognize Israel's right to exist before Washington will talk to them. He agrees that Iran with nuclear weapons is unacceptable and he has been a voice against anti-Semitism in the black community, but his pastor and mentor is a fan of Louis Farrakhan, who called Judaism either "a dirty religion" or "a gutter religion," depending on the reading of the audiotape.


But the McCain record on fighting terrorism, and his bold assertion that the fight against radical Muslims is the transforming struggle for the new century, offers Jews an alternative to both Obama and Hillary. Like everything else in this presidential campaign, old loyalties are scrambled like a plate of breakfast eggs.

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