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 May 1, 2009 7 Iyar 5769 The Banality of Preening By Suzanne Fields http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Hannah Arendt was wrong. Evil is never banal. Evil is fascinating, provocative and mind-focusing. Adolph Eichmann was probably a bore at a Nazi dinner party, a dull bureaucrat following orders, but his acts forever fascinate the human mind. We try but fail to understand how a fellow human could do what he did without conscience, without regret, without remorse. What is banal is the moral preening of those who judge the way others stand up to evil, who judge those who compromise in their human fallibility to fight evil so that the rest of us can enjoy the good (and the good life). What's banal are the pundits and partisan ideologues who get their hands dirty only changing an ink cartridge but who seek revenge on others who, acting in good faith, did what they believed was right in thwarting evil. What's banal are those who round up the usual suspects from history, usually the cliched villains of Nazi Germany, and trot them out for comparison in show trials of their fantasies. Shame requires that these moral purists make distinctions, sort of. "I know it's offensive to compare almost anything to the Nazis," writes Richard Cohen in The Washington Post, who proceeds to offend: "But the Bush-era memos struck me as echoes from the past." Mark McKeon, who prosecuted war criminals in Bosnia, concedes that the level of Republican crimes does not approach the crimes of Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein, but he would nevertheless punish "the most senior government officials responsible for (contemporary torture) crimes." The debate is not one of good vs. evil, but of moral abstraction vs. grim reality. The debate has moved from saying that "torture is wrong" — almost everybody agrees with that, in the abstract — to seeking revenge against those falsely perceived as moral enemies in our midst. It's easy to scorn lawyers who abuse the right to sue, but making lawyers criminals for the advice they offer is alien to everything we are as Americans. Defending certain rough interrogation techniques to squeeze evil men for information that could prevent catastrophe, at a time when everyone was terrified, was commonplace, driven by common sense. Thousands of Americans were regarded as at risk of mass murder by evil men plotting mayhem. But now that the risk is regarded as small, even as nonexistent by some, and the debate has moved away from preventing mass murder to punishing those who in a moment of national peril thought the best techniques were those that were necessary — and legal. What a difference eight years make. We forget the agony, the gruesome details of death in the Twin Towers, when hundreds of Americans faced the choice of jumping to their deaths or waiting to be burned alive or crushed under the weight of collapsing concrete. We all felt that "there but for the grace of G-d go I." We've forgotten the sudden fear at the sound of an unexpected plane overhead (though New Yorkers felt a reprise of that terror this week when one of the president's planes flew low over lower Manhattan in a training exercise), of our suspicious glances at the "swarthy" man sitting next to us in a crowded theater, a sports arena or an outdoor concert. We've forgotten how eagerly we embraced the tedious obstacles to personal freedoms that we confront every time we board an airplane. We forget how appreciative we were of George W. Bush that the outrages of human decency following 9-11 were not in New York or Washington but in Madrid and London. But it's not fashionable to remember all that this season. The absence of mayhem is just a happy coincidence. Few of us concern ourselves with how this happened. We don't celebrate the illnesses we don't get. We usually appreciate the doctors who administer the vaccine. In the years following 9-11, faith in government "intelligence" was rewarded. We grew to put aside daily fears because we felt the men and women in charge really were in control. The intelligence agents were living up to their assignments. If "mistakes were made," as the passive voice addresses uncomfortable facts, we stopped making them. They're behind us now. President Obama was right when he announced to the CIA that he wouldn't punish those who followed "Bush administration guidelines." He was right when he said he wouldn't look back in anger at the Bush administration officials who approved of "enhanced interrogation," that "this is not the time for retribution." We hope the president remembers that there's nothing banal about keeping your word. Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington 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. Suzanne Fields Archives © 2006, Creators Syndicate, Suzanne Fields

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