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May 20, 2013

Richard A. Serrano: Is Meir Kahane's assassin now a changed man?

Hannan Adely: Town raises Palestinian flag at City Hall

Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Morgan Housel: When smart investors do stupid things

Sharon Saloman, M.S., R.D.: Hunger games: Eat more, weigh less, without starving

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star

The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting
May 13, 2013

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation

David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church

Emily Alpert: Recession dragged down birth rates for less-educated women
Morgan Housel: The deep downside of home ownership

Peter Teffer: Will Dutch police soon be stalking cybercriminals on your computer?

Heidi McIndoo, M.S., R.D.: Meatless 'meat' can have its own set of problems

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Celebrate! This must-try appetizer is delicate yet has depth of flavor: Corn-Leek Cakes with Caviar, Smoked Salmon and Creme Fraiche

May 10, 2013

Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be

Caroline B. Glick: The dirty little secret about Israel's Arabs

Mona Charen: Hawking's Moral Calculus: The man and the movement he embraces
Morgan Housel: The biggest retirement myth ever told

Sandi Doughton: Eyes may provide new insight into brain problems

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : The Great Gatsby's Jewish Ties; Jews in the "Time 100 list" List; People's Most Beautiful Women

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: A sweet-hot meal: Pear salsa spices up salmon

May 8, 2013

Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas

Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate

Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
Amanda Paulson: Study reveals sad truths about community colleges

Harvard Health Letters: Evidence weak that zinc, echinacea are beneficial

The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility

May 6, 2013

Edmund Sanders and Patrick J. McDonnell: Think Israel's objective in Syria is to weaken Assad or embolden the rebels? Think again

Brian Bennett: Israeli airstrikes may show weakness in Syrian defense

Michael Ollove: Millions of ex-felons, parolees and those on probation are about to be entitled to tax-payer paid health coverage
Karen Kaplan: Most men can skip PSA test for prostate cancer, urologists say

Kimberly Lankford: How to track down a lost life insurance policy

Dream of Mars exploration achievable, experts say

The Kosher Gourmet by Susan M. Selasky: EGGPLANT WRAPS are an easy, sumptuous and scrumptious meal

May 3, 2013

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Human Courage and the Unavoidable, Disturbing Text

Steven Emerson: Attorney General Fights CAIR in Court, Lauds it in Public

Mediterranean diet helps beat dementia: study
Harvard Health Letters: When to be screened for a hearing problem

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Iron Man's Jewish Connections; Marc Maron's New TV Show; Martin Landau Grows Up with Israel; Shalom, Allan Arbus

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: A sweet surprise for Mother's Day dessert

May 1, 2013

Jonathan Rosenblum: An Improbable Journey to Orthodoxy

Jonathan Tobin: Blame Obama, Not Israel for Syria Push

Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Halena M. Gazelka, M.D.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: What you need to know about implanted pain relief devices

Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine

Jessica Shugart: When it comes to math, MRIs may be better than IQs

The Kosher Gourmet by Mario Batali: The celebrated chef on how high-maintenance ASPARAGUS RISOTTO need not be

April 29, 2013

Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust

Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?

Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Morgan Housel: He's rich, smart and old: Listen to him

Thomas Salinas, D.D.S.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: The safety of amalgam fillings

Harvard Health Letters: Tomatoes and stroke protection

Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Swing into spring with lemon cream pie

April 26, 2013

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: The world is a mirror

Caroline B. Glick: Time to confront Obama

Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Kimberly Lankford: New strategies ease pain of paying for long-term care insurance

Howard LeWine, M.D.: Ask the Harvard Experts: Too much ibuprofen?

Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Jewish Major Leaguers, 2013; New Movies and Comedy Show; Shalom, 'Lumpy' (Leave it to Beaver)

The Kosher Gourmet by Emily Ho : A bright and cheerful salad to herald the warmer months ahead

April 24, 2013

Steven Emerson: Boston Bomber Exposes Islamist Secret

Morgan Housel Admit it: No one has any idea what's going on
Harvard Health Letters: Can you get headaches from headache medication?

Kerri-Ann Jennings, M.S., R.D.: How to easily get more Omega-3s in your diet

Melissa Healy: Pot in a pill: All the pain relief without the smoke

The Kosher Gourmet by Susan Russo: Chipotle Chili Butternut Squash Soup is bold, zesty, hot

April 22, 2013

Ken Dilanian: Counterterrorism's future is unclear

US man departing country arrested on terror charges
Barbara Williams: An unorthodox but growing treatment in a 9-year-old's battle against cancer

P.J. Skerrett, M.D.: How to recognize a good whole grain product

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Teen actor Jonah Bobo in New Flick: Hunky James Wolk on Mad Men; Erich Segal's Daughter Writes Prize-Winning Jewish Novel


Jewish World Review Nov. 8, 2012/ 23 Mar-Cheshvan, 5773

Four more years

By Paul Greenberg




http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Congatulations, Mr. President. You fought this election out on your principles and your ground -- the politics of identity, whether ethnic, class or partisan -- and prevailed. Early in the night. There was no contested cliffhanger. There was no extended legal struggle a la Bush v. Gore in 2000, the presidential election that threatened never to end. There are no demands that the Electoral College be abandoned in favor of some French-style popular vote. And no hard feelings. At least no more than the usual cavils. Call it a happy ending. Four More Years! Though they may be only four more years of the same drift, of staying the course, of Steady As She Goes -- down.

After an election that was supposedly going to change everything, nothing seems to have been changed at all. The political pendulum has hardly swung. The political landscape seems just the same as it did the day before the election: a divided government presides over a divided people. A map colored red and blue of this one nation indivisible would show it just about equally split between Obama and Romney voters. Very well. Divided we stand, too. This country has endured far sharper divisions and not just endured but prospered and advanced.

Alexis de Tocqueville, the savvy Frenchman who toured Jacksonian America, left us more than a perceptive impression of that one era. He left us a sanctuary and height from which to view and appraise the workings of all of Democracy in America, to use the title of his two volumes of inexhaustible perspective on American politics, culture, and the American spirit in general. He left us a sense of proportion, which is always lacking immediately after a presidential election. Even one like this, which has proved neither the End of the World nor The Coming of the Messianic Age, depending on which partisans were doing the prophesying.

Today would seem an especially good one to recall Tocqueville's description of the great flood that is every American presidential election -- and its anticlimactic aftermath:

"Long before the appointed moment arrives, the election becomes the greatest and so to speak sole business preoccupying minds. ... The entire nation falls into a feverish state; the election is then the daily text of the public papers, the subject of particular conversations, the goal of all reasoning, the object of all thoughts. ... As soon as fortune has pronounced (the outcome) this ardor is dissipated, everything becomes calm, and the river, one moment overflowed, returns peacefully to its bed."

The candidates who only the day before were denouncing each other now say their polite platitudes, felt or not, and life in these United States continues as before, except in this case even more so.

Let us now congratulate the loser, too. Mitt Romney conducted as good a campaign as could be expected in the lackluster circumstances, and surely better than any of his rivals for the Republican nomination might have. Or does anyone seriously contend that a Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich could have done better at the polls than Mr. Romney, or even as well? How about Michele Bachmann or Herman Cain? Rick Perry? Please.

Beyond the what-might-have-beens lies obdurate political fate: Mitt Romney lost because he was up against the most powerful of forces. No, not some secret conspiracy but inertia, which tends to be a powerful force of its own.

There is much ruin in a nation, as Adam Smith observed, but it may not be as powerful as just plain, immovable inertia, the tendency of things to stay as they are. However unsatisfactory their drift, which may now continue in the wrong direction, or no clear direction at all, whether we're talking about the economy or the decline of American leadership in the world's increasingly dangerously affairs.

These are the times that try conservatives' souls, when we seem up against no clear opposition but an airy inertia. Yet we've persisted through much greater challenges. A little perspective, please. However disappointing the election returns Tuesday, the Republican Party remains the engine of new ideas in a political climate that otherwise seems bereft of any proposals except Stay the Course, however disastrous it may prove.

The challenge for the GOP is to find leaders who can explain those ideas convincingly to We the People despite all the confusion and scaretalk they may stir up. Paul Ryan, the party's vice-presidential candidate this year, showed it can be done. And will be done again.

Now is no time to take refuge in more radical and less popular ideas than Mr. Romney's candidacy represented. That way lies not victory but a fantasy world that offers only more defeat.

In such times, let us hold on to the counsel Whittaker Chambers offered his young friend Bill Buckley after another Republican defeat:

"If the Republican Party cannot get some grip of the actual world we live in, and from it generalize and actively promote a program that means something to masses of people -- why, somebody else will. There will be nothing to argue. The voters will simply vote Republicans into singularity. The Republican Party will become like one of those dark little shops which apparently never sell anything. If, for any reason, you go in, you find, at the back, an old man, fingering for his own pleasure, some oddments of cloth. Nobody wants to buy them, which is fine because the old man is not really interested in selling. He just likes to hold and to feel."

Whittaker Chambers, like Alexis de Tocqueville, could be writing today.

Paul Greenberg Archives

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JWR contributor Paul Greenberg, editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, has won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. Send your comments by clicking here.

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