<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss version="2.0"
	xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"
	xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/"
	xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
	xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
	xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/"
	xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/"
	>

<channel>
	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; rabbi</title>
	<atom:link href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/tag/rabbi/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
	<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com</link>
	<description></description>
	<lastBuildDate>Wed, 31 Dec 2014 16:20:06 +0000</lastBuildDate>
	<language>en-US</language>
		<sy:updatePeriod>hourly</sy:updatePeriod>
		<sy:updateFrequency>1</sy:updateFrequency>
	
	<item>
		<title>Responding to the Slaughter</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/caroline-glick/responding-to-the-slaughter/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=responding-to-the-slaughter</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/caroline-glick/responding-to-the-slaughter/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 21 Nov 2014 05:26:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Caroline Glick]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jerusalem]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[massacre]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[murder]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[palestinians]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rabbi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Synagogue]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=245745</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Immediate measures Israel should take to stop the Islamic jihad against the Jewish people. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/635518979796654817-GTY-459169342.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-245746" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/635518979796654817-GTY-459169342-450x337.jpg" alt="635518979796654817-GTY-459169342" width="395" height="296" /></a>Originally published by the <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Column-One-Responding-to-the-slaughter-382423">Jerusalem Post</a>. </em></p>
<p><span style="color: #000000;">What we are seeing in Jerusalem today is not simply Palestinian terrorism. It is Islamic jihad. No one likes to admit it. The television reporters insist that this is the worst possible scenario because there is no way to placate it.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">There is no way to reason with it.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">So what else is new? The horrible truth is that all of the anti-Jewish slaughters perpetrated by our Arab neighbors have been motivated to greater or lesser degrees by Islamic Jew-hatred. The only difference between the past hundred years and now is that today our appeasement-oriented elite is finding it harder to pretend away the obvious fact that we cannot placate our enemies.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">No “provocation” by Jews drove two Jerusalem Arabs to pick up meat cleavers and a rifle and slaughter rabbis in worship like sheep and then mutilate their bodies.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">No “frustration” with a “lack of progress” in the “peace process,” can motivate people to run over Jewish babies or attempt to assassinate a Jewish civil rights activist.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">The reason that these terrorists have decided to kill Jews is that they take offense at the fact that in Israel, Jews are free. They take offense because all their lives they have been taught that Jews should live at their mercy, or die by their sword.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">They do so because they believe, as former Jordanian MP Ya’qub Qarash said on Palestinian television last week, that Christians and Muslims should work together to forbid the presence of Jews in “Palestine” and guarantee that “not a single Jew will remain in Jerusalem.”</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Our neighbors are taught that Muhammad, the founder of Islam, signed the treaty of Hudaybiyah in 628 as a ploy to buy time during which he would change the balance of power between his army and the Jews of Kuraish. And 10 years later, once his army gained the upper hand, he annihilated the Jews.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Throughout the 130-year history of modern Zionism, Islamic Jew-hatred has been restrained by two forces: the desire of many Arabs to live at peace with their Jewish neighbors; and the ability of Israeli authorities and before them, British authorities, to deter the local Arab Muslims from attacking.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">The monopoly on Arab Muslim leadership has always belonged to the intolerant bigots. Support for coexistence has always been the choice of individuals.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Haj Amin el-Husseini’s first act as the founder of the Palestinian Arab identity was to translate The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and serialize them in the local press.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">During the Arab jihad of 1936-1939, Husseini’s gangs of murderers killed more Arabs than the British did. He targeted those who sought peaceful coexistence with the Jews.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">His successor Yasser Arafat followed his example.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">During the 1988-1991 Palestinian uprising, the PLO killed more Palestinians than the IDF did. Like Husseini, Arafat targeted Palestinians who worked with Israel.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Since Israel imprudently embraced Arafat and the PLO in 1993 and permitted them to govern the Palestinians in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, and exert direct influence and coercive power over the Arabs of Jerusalem, the Palestinian Authority’s governing institutions have used all the tools at their disposal to silence those who support peaceful coexistence with Israel, and indoctrinate the general public in Islamic and racial Jew-hatred.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Much has been made of the recent spike in incitement of violence by Palestinian leaders led by Arafat’s successor Mahmoud Abbas. But the flames Abbas and his comrades are throwing would not cause such conflagrations if they hadn’t already indoctrinated their audience to desire the destruction of the Jews.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">You cannot solicit murder among those who haven’t been taught that committing murder is an act of heroism.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Today Israel must take swift, effective action to stop the slaughter. The damage that has been done to the psyches of the Arabs of Jerusalem and their brethren in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, cannot be repaired in a timeline relevant to the task of preventing the next massacre.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">This means that for the time being, on the tactical level, Israel’s only play is strengthening its deterrence.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Israel faces two major constraints in meeting this challenge.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">First, the European Union and the Obama administration, as well as the US foreign policy elite, are obsessively committed to a policy of empowering the Palestinians against Israel.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">The Spanish parliament’s decision to go ahead with its planned vote to recognize the “State of Palestine,” just hours after the massacre at the Bnei Torah Kehillat Yaakov synagogue in Jerusalem’s Har Nof neighborhood shows that the EU’s dedication to strengthening the Palestinians against Israel is entirely unrelated to events on the ground.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">They don’t care who the Palestinians are or what they do. For their own reasons they have made supporting the Palestinians at Israel’s expense their top foreign policy priority.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Similarly, US President Barack Obama couldn’t contain his compulsion to pressure Israel even in his statement condemning the massacre. Even there, Obama called on Israelis and Palestinians equally to restrain themselves.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Obama’s unabated hostility toward Israel was brought to bear on Tuesday afternoon when the State Department restated its rejection of Jewish property rights in Jerusalem and its desire to see the homes of terrorist murderers left intact for the welfare of their terror-supporting families.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">On Tuesday, Israel’s social media outlets were filled with angry rebukes of Western media outlets from CNN to MSNBC to CBS, to the BBC. All these networks, and many others, did everything in their power to explain away the synagogue slaughter as just another instance of a cycle of violence. That is, they all sought to frame the discussion in a way that would lead their viewers to the conclusion that the slaughter of praying rabbis was justified.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">While appalling, the coverage was not the least surprising. The Western elite media’s devotion to their false narrative of Israeli culpability for all the problems in the region is absolute. Networks would rather wreck their professional reputations than tell the truth.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Together with the EU, the American policy elite and the Obama administration, the media place Israel’s leaders in a bind. Every step they take to defend the country and protect the rights of Jews meets with automatic and libelous condemnation.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">The other impediment Israel faces in deterring anti-Jewish violence against its citizenry is its own weakness. Since the inception of the phony peace process, Israel has continuously rewarded the Palestinians for their murderous violence against its citizenry.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">From Israel’s transfer of control over all the Palestinian population centers in Judea and Samaria, to its forcible expulsion of its own people from Gaza, to its repeated releases of terrorists from prison, to its continued transfer of hundreds of millions of shekels in tax revenues to the PA, Israel has showed the Palestinians at every turn that far from being punished for murdering Jews, they will be rewarded for doing so.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Given the US and European support for the Palestinians, Israeli declarations that there will be no future releases of terrorists have no credibility. If terrorists aren’t killed on the spot, they can assume that they will eventually be released; if not in exchange for an Israeli hostage, Israel will release them in an attempt to placate the White House.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">But even with these constraints on its actions, Israel can take steps to deter its hate-filled enemies from attacking.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Since the current campaign of murder is being carried out by terrorists largely acting on their own accord, the measures Israel adopts to stop the attacks should be directed primarily against individual terrorists. As for action against the PA, it needs to be credible, consistent and directed to where it will hurt Palestinian leaders the most: their wallets.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">With regard to the individual terrorists, the government has made much of its intention to destroy the homes of terrorists. While it sounds good, there is limited evidence of the effectiveness of this punitive measure, which is a relic of the British Mandate.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Rather than destroy their homes, Israel should adopt the US anti-narcotics policy of asset seizure.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">All assets directly or indirectly tied to terrorists, including their homes and any other structure where they planned their crimes, and all remittances to them, should be seized and transferred to their victims, to do with what they will.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">If Israel hands over the homes of the synagogue butchers to the 24 orphans of Rabbi Moshe Twersky, Rabbi Kalman Levine, Rabbi Aryeh Kupinsky and Rabbi Avraham Goldberg, not only will justice be served. The children’s inheritance of the homes of their fathers’ killers will send a clear and demoralizing message to other would-be killers.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Not only will their atrocities fail to remove the Jews from Israel. Every terrorist will contribute to the Zionist project by donating his home to the Jewish settlement enterprise.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Just as Israel has repeatedly buckled under US pressure to release terrorists from jail, so it has bowed to US pressure to continue to fund the PA by transferring the tax revenues it collects on goods imported to the PA.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Assuming that the government is too weak to stand up to the Americans, at a minimum it can see that the money is properly used.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">To that end, the Knesset should pass a law permitting Israeli terror victims to sue the PA for actual and punitive damages in Israel courts. The sums awarded to the victims should be taken from the tax revenues Israel collects for the PA. The law should apply retroactively to all victims of Palestinian terror carried out since the establishment of the PA in May 1994.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Not only should the law permit Israeli terror victims to sue the PA. It should dictate actions the Justice Ministry must take to assist them in bringing suit.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Israel should also revoke citizenship and residency rights not only from terrorists themselves, but from those who enjoy citizenship and residency rights by dint of their relationship with the terrorists.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Wives who received Israeli residency or citizenship rights though marriage to terrorists should have their rights revoked, as should the children of the terrorists.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Since Tuesday’s massacre, aside from Abbas’s phony condemnation, the Palestinian leadership and public from Fatah to Hamas have been unanimous in their praise for the atrocity.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Today Israel is powerless to influence the hearts of our Arab neighbors. But we can influence their minds. We can deter them from attacking us.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">The actions set forth above: asset seizure, revenue seizure and citizenship/residency abrogation for terrorists and their dependents are steps that Israel can take today, despite the hostile international climate.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">If the government and Knesset adopt these measures, they will rectify some of the damage Israel has inflicted on itself by showing the Palestinians over two decades that they will be rewarded for their aggression.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">If our leaders fail to take these or similar actions, and suffice with complaining about incitement, their condemnations of the murder of Jews will ring as hollow as those sounded by the BBC, Obama and Abbas.</span></p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
<p><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://horowitzfreedomcenter.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=caa6f67f1482e6214d83be62d&amp;id=c761755bdf" target="_blank"><b>Subscribe</b></a><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"> to Frontpage&#8217;s TV show, <i>The Glazov Gang</i>, and </strong><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang" target="_blank"><b>LIKE</b></a><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"> it on </strong><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang" target="_blank"><b>Facebook.</b></a></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/caroline-glick/responding-to-the-slaughter/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>84</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>&#8216;Rebbe&#8217;: The Most Influential Rabbi in Modern History</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ronn-torossian/rebbe-the-most-influential-rabbi-in-modern-history/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=rebbe-the-most-influential-rabbi-in-modern-history</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ronn-torossian/rebbe-the-most-influential-rabbi-in-modern-history/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 02 Jun 2014 04:10:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ronn Torossian]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Menachem M. Schneerson]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[public]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rabbi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Rebbe]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Religion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[School Prayer]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=226684</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[One of the modern era's most important rabbis -- for Christians and Jews alike. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/rREL2718970.jpg"><img class=" wp-image-226688 alignleft" alt="rREL2718970" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/rREL2718970-247x350.jpg" width="173" height="245" /></a>A just released book, </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">“<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Rebbe-Teachings-Menachem-Schneerson-Influential/dp/0062318985">Rebbe: The Life And Teachings of Menachem M. Schneerson</a>, The Most Influential Rabbi in Modern History” </i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">should be in the personal library of Americans of every faith. This multifaceted biography details the work and beliefs of the late Rabbi Schneerson, whose organization, </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.algemeiner.com/2011/10/29/secret-of-marketing-success-follow-chabad/">Chabad-Lubavitch</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, remains the largest Jewish organization in the world.  Schneerson, in a timeless manner, used authentic Jewish values to make the world a better place – and his disciples continue to work to make America and the world brighter and better.  America, which is often said to be built on </span><b style="line-height: 1.5em;">&#8220;</b><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Judeo</span><b style="line-height: 1.5em;">-</b><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Christian</span><b style="line-height: 1.5em;">&#8220;</b><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> values should encourage more student Bible Clubs, and prayer and references to God in the public sphere.</span></p>
<p>Rabbi Schneerson uniquely recognized how America was created as a nation of high ideals, a country which demands moral behavior from people, and that “In God We Trust” was amongst the bedrock principles of the special uniqueness of America. This biography shares many viewpoints on this tremendous man whose wisdom was personally imparted to politicians of all political parties – and Americans of all religious and political stripes – including world leaders Ronald Reagan, Robert F. Kennedy, Menachem Begin and others.</p>
<p>The Supreme Court has held, “[N]othing in the Constitution … prohibits any public school student from voluntarily praying at any time before, during, or after the school day” – yet, despite this many school officials mistakenly believe that student prayer inside the public schoolhouse violates the  so-called “separation of church and state.” Rabbi Schneerson – affectionately known as the Rebbe &#8211; wisely noted that “a daily prayer in the public schools is for a vast number of boys and girls the only opportunity for cultivating…an awareness of God.” Indeed, whether a moment of silence, or a prayer, these values one must believe could only strengthen America, as this amazing personal biography reassures us.</p>
<p>Schneerson noted in a letter to an academic, “children in the public schools should be allowed to begin their day with the recitation of a nondenominational prayer, acknowledging the existence of a Creator and Master of the Universe, and our dependence upon him.” There must always remain a constitutionally guaranteed right of public school students to pray, and one hopes that when protecting freedom in America, one also protects religious liberties of public school students and their families</p>
<p>In 2014, a debate continues about the public placement of a Ten Commandments monument on Oklahoma&#8217;s Capitol lawn, which the American Civil Liberties Union&#8217;s local chapter has opposed. One sees Bibles being confiscated in schools, and religious symbols forbidden from court houses and government buildings- and that is simply wrong.</p>
<p>The Rebbe often spoke of how religion and its positive values brought “light” and good values. Schneerson wrote of religion in the public sphere that his emissaries should “go out into the courtyard into the public domain, and create light which illuminates the entire world.”  Prayer in school, public advocacy of a belief in God and the like have important spiritual and moral ramifications and benefits for Americans of all faiths.</p>
<p>As Telushkin’s book shares &#8212; which in today’s world of heroic athletes and reality stars is vital to note &#8212; “belief in a personal good before whom all people are accountable is exactly what the Rebbe believed was required.&#8221; What Jewish and non-Jewish children alike need – adults, too for that matter – is understanding that “the world in which they live is not a jungle, where brute force, cunning and unbridled passion rule supreme, but that it has a (Supreme Being) who… takes a ‘personal interest’ in the affairs of each and every individual, and to him everyone is accountable for his or her daily conduct.”</p>
<p>Personal responsibility is an important positive value, as is fear and respect for God. Self-empowerment and belief that there is something larger than us in this world are values which can only strengthen America.</p>
<p><em>Rebbe</em> is a book which discusses how empathy, wisdom, learning and knowledge are just some of the many aspects of what made Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson such a special and great man who left an amazing impact on the Jewish people, American culture and the world.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
<p><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://horowitzfreedomcenter.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=caa6f67f1482e6214d83be62d&amp;id=c761755bdf" target="_blank"><b>Subscribe</b></a><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"> to Frontpage&#8217;s TV show, <i>The Glazov Gang</i>, and </strong><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang" target="_blank"><b>LIKE</b></a><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"> it on </strong><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang" target="_blank"><b>Facebook.</b></a></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ronn-torossian/rebbe-the-most-influential-rabbi-in-modern-history/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>12</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>A Tale of Two Rabbis</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/ben-shapiro/a-tale-of-two-rabbis/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=a-tale-of-two-rabbis</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/ben-shapiro/a-tale-of-two-rabbis/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 04 Sep 2012 04:53:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ben Shapiro]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[boycott]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Election]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Lynn Gottleib]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pakistan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rabbi]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=142630</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Two very different rabbis walk into two very different conventions.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/judaism.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-142659 alignleft" title="judaism" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/judaism.jpg" alt="" width="288" height="288" /></a>Meet Lynn Gottleib. She calls herself a rabbi, and she’s at the top of President Obama’s “Rabbis for Obama” group – another cynical attempt by the Obama campaign to pretend that they have support from the religious Jewish community. Only one problem: Gottlieb is an anti-Israel radical who bears nothing but hatred for traditional Judaism. She’s supped with Iran’s genocidal president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and worked with Jewish Voice for Peace, a front group for Israel-haters. She has urged that America boycott, divest, and sanction Israel.</p>
<p>Gottlieb sounds a good deal like President Obama when it comes to her pie-in-the-sky view of Iranian nuclear weapons: “We&#8217;ve been living with a nuclear Israel which used conventional weapons on people. We&#8217;ve been living with nuclear India, with nuclear Pakistan, nuclear United States. Do we want to live with any government having nuclear power? I don&#8217;t think so. I personally do not want to live in a world with nuclear weapons, period. It&#8217;s unfortunate that we have been valuing militarism and war over diplomacy and peacemaking. It&#8217;s a choice, a human choice. War is not inevitable. It is a choice. Are we doing everything we can to prevent war? I would like to see all our politicians act differently in this regard.”</p>
<p>And she’s insane when it comes to American Christian support for Israel, buying into every false stereotype about the rationale for that support. “I signed on to be a rabbi for Obama,” she recently wrote on her Facebook page. “There are no other clergy groups, such as Imams or Priests for Obama. Really, what Jewish person wants to vote for a (Christian Zionist) guy who believes all Jews should move to Israel so that we can all finally convert and bring the end of time and go to heaven or be burned up in the apocalypse?”</p>
<p>What exactly is she talking about? Nobody really knows, since nobody has expressed that opinion. But it helps her sleep at night while backing a man who hates Israel.</p>
<p>The question isn’t why Gottlieb would support Obama, though. It’s why the Democrats are so comfortable with an anti-Israel extremist like Gottlieb. The answer is clear: she’s one of the few “rabbis” they could find who would buy into their own anti-Israel agenda.</p>
<p>Now take a look at the Republican Party.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/ben-shapiro/a-tale-of-two-rabbis/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>109</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Britain’s Chief Rabbi Defends Christians</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/mark-d-tooley/britain%e2%80%99s-chief-rabbi-defends-christians/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=britain%25e2%2580%2599s-chief-rabbi-defends-christians</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/mark-d-tooley/britain%e2%80%99s-chief-rabbi-defends-christians/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 17 Jan 2012 04:00:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mark D. Tooley]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Britain]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Christians]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jews]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jonathan Sacks]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Left]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rabbi]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=119307</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Rabbi Jonathan Sacks urges Jews and Christians to work together to “help Europe recover its soul.”]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/sacks.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-119310" title="sacks" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/sacks.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="368" /></a></p>
<p>British Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks visited with Pope Benedict XVI last month in Rome and defended Europe’s Judeo-Christian heritage, including the “religious roots of the market economy and of democratic capitalism.”   In a speech there, he urged that Jews and Christians to work together to “help Europe recover its soul.”</p>
<p>Separately, in a speech to the British House of Lords, Sacks denounced increasing persecution of Christians by radical Islam, warning that the “fate of Christians in the Middle East today is the litmus test of the Arab Spring.”  In Rome and in London, he was more outspoken than are many of Europe’s often muted church officials, who typically fear to defend their faith, their culture, or their persecuted brethren.</p>
<p>&#8220;If Europe loses the Judeo-Christian heritage that gave it its historic identity and its greatest achievements in literature, art, music, education, politics, and economics, it will lose its identity and its greatness,” Sacks warned during his Rome speech.  &#8220;When a civilization loses its faith, it loses its future. When it recovers its faith, it recovers its future. For the sake of our children … we &#8211; Jews and Christians, side-by-side &#8211; must renew our faith and its prophetic voice.”</p>
<p>Sacks admired and was encouraged by the warm response the Pope received during his 2010 visit to mostly non-religious Britain, when “everyone was amazed that the interest was so acute and so widespread.” The Chief Rabbi’s visit to Rome clearly was an attempt to strengthen Jewish and Christian voices in defense of historic Western cultural, political and economic principles.</p>
<p>Unlike left-leaning church officials in the West who simplistically equate free markets with sterile materialism, Sacks offered a more balanced perspective.  He critiqued Europe’s secularism and materialism while pointing out that biblical religion created the foundations of prosperous market economies.  &#8220;When Europe recovers its soul, it will recover its wealth-creating energies,” he said.  “But first it must remember: humanity was not created to serve markets. Markets were created to serve humankind.&#8221;   In contrast, the Religious Left, both in Europe and America, prefers to believe that markets are innately wicked and must be usurped by coercive national and international regulation.</p>
<p>Of course, much of the Religious Left is itself deeply materialist, preoccupied by the redistribution of wealth but unconcerned about the transcendence and timeless principles that facilitate justice and prosperity.  But appropriately for a spiritual leader, Sacks pointed to the primacy of the “soul” of Europe.</p>
<p>“We are very concerned obviously with the soul of Europe, I mean Europe was built on Judeo-Christian foundations, even the market was built on Judeo-Christian foundations,” Sacks told Vatican Radio.  In his Rome speech, he described the West’s democracy and prosperity relying on biblical understandings of “dignity of the human individual,” respect for property rights and labor, job creation over charity, and creation of wealth so as to become “partners with God in the work of creation.”   He noted that ancient rabbis “favored markets and competition because they generate wealth, lower prices, increase choice, reduced absolute levels of poverty, and extend humanity’s control over the environment, narrowing the extent to which we are the passive victims of circumstance and fate.”</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/mark-d-tooley/britain%e2%80%99s-chief-rabbi-defends-christians/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Endangering Lives to Sell Newspapers</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/alan-m-dershowitz/endangering-lives-to-sell-newspapers/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=endangering-lives-to-sell-newspapers</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/alan-m-dershowitz/endangering-lives-to-sell-newspapers/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 12 Feb 2010 05:05:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Alan M. Dershowitz]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Alan Dershowitz]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Amir]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[article]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[assassination]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Boro Park]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bradley Burston]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[classmate]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[credibility]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Debra DeLee]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[designation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fact]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Forward]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[genetic flaw]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[harm]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hebrew word]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[interview]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[israeli army]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[israeli army radio]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[israeli journalist]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Judge Goldstone]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[justification]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[M.J. Rosenberg]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[marketplace]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[marketplace of ideas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Michael Karpin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[monster]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[moser]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[murder]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Newspaper]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[page]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[page response]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Palestine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[part]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[policy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[political discourse]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[question]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rabbi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Rabin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[radio station]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Razi Barkai]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[regard]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[report]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[response]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Richard Goldstone]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ron Kampares]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sensationalism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[settler]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[several times]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[someone]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[term]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[thick accent]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[traitor]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[word]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Yeshiva]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[yigal amir]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=49647</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[How some Israeli and American Jewish media incite violence.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/goldstone-043009.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-49980" title="goldstone-043009" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/goldstone-043009.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="314" /></a></p>
<p>It all began with an innocent enough request for an interview about the Goldstone report and my <a href="http://www.alandershowitz.com/goldstone.pdf">49 page response</a> to it. The Israeli Army radio station asked to interview me.  The interview was conducted by an experienced host, Razi Barkai.  Unbeknownst to me, Barkai had an agenda.  He wanted to get me to say that I thought that Goldstone was a “moser.”  He wanted me to use this Hebrew word, whose meaning I did not understand, because in Israel, this obscure theological term has taken on a meaning of its own.  According to The Forward, “the term moser entered Israeli political discourse in 1995 in the wake of Rabin’s assassination by radical settler supporter Yigal Amir, when Amir cited some rabbis’ designation of Rabin as a moser as part of his justification for carrying out the murder.”  The Forward quoted Michael Karpin, an Israeli journalist and the author of a book on Rabin’s assassination, as follows: “After the assassination, when Amir was interviewed by the police and he mentioned the term moser, people tried to find out what it is…Nobody used it here before the assassination.”</p>
<p>Unfortunately, I was totally unfamiliar with the “inside baseball”—or in this case “inside Israel”—use of this esoteric term.</p>
<p>Several times during the interview, Barkai tried to get me to agree that Goldstone was a moser, a word he pronounced with a thick accent.  Since the interview was being conducted in English, I thought he was asking me to agree with him that Goldstone was a “monster.”  I would never use the term “monster” since it suggests an inherent, even genetic, flaw in a person, without regard to what he has said or done.  I was clear throughout my interview that I believed that Goldstone had exploited his Jewishness to lend illegitimate credibility <a href="http://cgis.jpost.com/Blogs/dershowitz/entry/arguments_ad_hominem_in_defense">to a false report</a>. In this respect, he had betrayed his people and deserved to be condemned in the marketplace of ideas.  Accordingly, when Barkai asked me the following question, “Do you hint, Professor, that he is a moser, someone who betrays his own people?,”  I focused on the part of the question I understood.  Believing that he is someone who betrays his own people, I answered the question in the affirmative.  Barkai had sprung the trap.  Now he had me.  He could send out press releases indicating that I had called Goldstone a moser, even though I never used the word and had no idea what it meant.</p>
<p>The story spread quickly around the world, and I was condemned, largely by the extreme left, for advocating Goldstone’s murder.  As soon as I heard this, I immediately demanded a clarification from Barkai, which he ran on the air.  I repeatedly emphasized, in subsequent interviews, that “I certainly did not mean to imply that any physical harm should come to Goldstone.”  But this didn’t stop the incitement by those in the media more interested in sensationalism than truth.</p>
<p>M.J. Rosenberg, the former Director of Policy Analysis for Israel Policy Forum, wrote in his Palestine Note blog that I was “calling for Goldstone’s murder.”  Even more insidiously, the Forward, a mainstream Jewish newspaper, ran a lengthy piece strongly implying that I must have known the theological (or “Halachic”) implications of “moser.”  They went so far as to find an elementary school classmate at Etz Chayim Yeshiva in Boro Park who told them, quite erroneously, that I “must have heard it as a child.”  (Another classmate wrote the Forward a letter confirming that he too had never heard it—and he was a <span style="text-decoration: underline;">good</span> Yeshiva student!)  The Forward then went on to quote another rabbi to the effect that “a moser can become a capital crime” under certain circumstances.  At the very bottom of the article, so as not to detract from its sensationalism, the Forward included the following disclaimer:</p>
<p>“I do not want any harm to come to Richard Goldstone,” Dershowitz said.  “I want him to be responded to in the marketplace of ideas.”</p>
<p>An article in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency by Ron Kampares was even more irresponsible.  It “reported” the following:</p>
<p>“Most recently, Alan Dershowitz likened him to a “moser”, a Jewish traitor deemed in some interpretations as worthy of a death sentence.”</p>
<p>This was written days <span style="text-decoration: underline;">after</span> I had made it clear that I wanted no harm to befall Goldstone.  A response to the JTA article by Debra DeLee, President and CEO of Americans For Peace Now, accused me—also days after I made my position clear—of calling Goldstone a “moser,” which she said is “a term reserved in traditional Jewish law for a Jewish traitor who should be killed.”</p>
<p>She also showed her ignorance of the fact that I had written a 49 page substantive response to the Goldstone report, by saying that I “could have—and should have—aired substantive disagreements about the report that Judge Goldstone authored following the Gaza War.”</p>
<p>Finally, a columnist for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz (Bradley Burston) described me as “Kahane-sounding,” a reference for the radical rabbi who did in fact call for violence—as contrasted for my call for peace based on a two-state solution and the end of civilian settlements.  But no matter, its sells newspapers.</p>
<p>It’s bad enough that there are some religious extremists on both sides who actually incite their followers to commit violence.  But when elements of the mainstream Israeli and Jewish media twist the truth in the interest of sensationalism to imply—or state outright—that I am calling for the murder of Richard Goldstone, it is those irresponsible members of the media (and of Americans For Peace Now) who become the inciters.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/alan-m-dershowitz/endangering-lives-to-sell-newspapers/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>26</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>A Daughter Brought to Life &#8211; by Jay Nordlinger</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/jay-nordlinger/a-daughter-brought-to-life-by-jay-nordlinger/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=a-daughter-brought-to-life-by-jay-nordlinger</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/jay-nordlinger/a-daughter-brought-to-life-by-jay-nordlinger/#respond</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 30 Dec 2009 05:04:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jay Nordlinger]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[activist]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[age]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[aunt barbara]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Barbara]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[beloved aunt]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[book]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[child]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[co author]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cracking]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[david]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[David Horowitz]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[doer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[doubt]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Heart]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[introduction]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[leader]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Left]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[left behind]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[man]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[meditation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[memoir]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mind]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mortality]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[National]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[New]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[no doubt]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[online]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pay attention]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[poems]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rabbi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[reading]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Reaganite]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[relationship]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Review]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sarah Horowitz]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sarah Rose Horowitz]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[something]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Stocks]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Thinker]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[TIME]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[visit]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[woman]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=43116</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[David Horowitz’s unusual new memoir.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-43119" title="sarah" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/sarah2.jpg" alt="sarah" width="450" height="302" /></p>
<p><strong>[Visit <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/">National Review</a>]</strong></p>
<p>David Horowitz has done what few could do: He has written a memoir of a child of his who died (age 44); and he has brought it off beautifully. <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/redirect/amazon.p?j=1596981032"><em>A Cracking of the Heart</em></a> makes for raw reading at times, but it also makes for thought-provoking and uplifting reading. It is a very unusual book, written by an unusual man — about an unusual woman — and when I say “unusual,” I mean something positive, no doubt.</p>
<p>Horowitz will need no introduction to readers of National Review Online. A leader of the New Left, he became a leader of the fighting Reaganite Right. He is a thinker and a doer, an intellectual and an activist. His mind ranges widely, and so do his books. He has written about politics and policy, of course. But he has also written about matters literary, cultural, and spiritual. His 2005 book, <em>The End of Time</em>, is a meditation on mortality. <em>A Cracking of the Heart</em> is a meditation too, plus other things.</p>
<p>Sarah Rose Horowitz — the second of David’s four children — died in March 2008. Several years before, her beloved aunt Barbara died: and her rabbi told her, “Pay attention to the ways in which your relationship continues.” That is part of what David is doing in this book.</p>
<p>She spent much of her time writing, did Sarah Horowitz, producing poems, stories, articles, notes of various kinds. But she published very little. She is certainly published now, as her father stocks this memoir with the writings she left behind. Indeed, she is a co-author of this book, often its main voice.</p>
<p><strong>To continue reading this article, <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZDc1YjExYzM4NzRiNTcwNjg4ZThlMDA2OTNlM2Y4ODM=">click here</a>.</strong></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/jay-nordlinger/a-daughter-brought-to-life-by-jay-nordlinger/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Sarah’s Story &#8211; by Barbara Kay</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/barbara-kay/sarah%e2%80%99s-story-by-barbara-kay/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=sarah%25e2%2580%2599s-story-by-barbara-kay</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/barbara-kay/sarah%e2%80%99s-story-by-barbara-kay/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 17 Dec 2009 05:06:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Barbara Kay]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[America]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[atonement]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[child]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[comfort]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cracking]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cream]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[daughter sarah]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[David Horowitz]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Determined]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Dialogue]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ear]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[East Bay]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[eustachian]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[existence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[father]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[floodgate]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[grief]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[high holy days]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Horowitz]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ice]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[inspiration]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[intensity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[job]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[life and death]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[long time]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mobility]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[moment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[need]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[novel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ost]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[passions]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[perception]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[propensity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[prose]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rabbi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[remorse]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[result]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sarah]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[shock]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[spatial]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[spiritual mentor]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[subject of life]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[success]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[teaching]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[teaching autistic children]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[two thoughts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[way]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[woman]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[writer]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=41666</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[David Horowitz's heartbreaking tribute to his late daughter Sarah.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-41668" title="sarah" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/sarah1.jpg" alt="sarah" width="450" height="387" /></p>
<p>There is        one subject no writer in the world, even the most talented and eclectic,        would hope to have as a book project, and that is the death of his own        child.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Heart-David-Horowitz/dp/1596981032/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1260746203&amp;sr=1-1"><em>A        Cracking of the Heart</em></a> by former Marxist, but        long-time conservative public intellectual and best-selling author David        Horowitz, takes as its starting point the moment he was informed that        “something terrible has happened.” The police had discovered the body of        Horowitz’s 44-year old daughter Sarah, alone in her apartment, when she        failed to show up for her job at a school teaching autistic children.</p>
<p>The book’s        title refers to the process of atonement associated with the Jewish high        holy days. For in addition to natural grief, the shock of his daughter’s        death opened a floodgate of remorse:<em> “I should have spent more time        with you when there was time to spend. I should have told you how much I        love you, or told you more often. I should have been less contentious when        we had our disputes.”</em></p>
<p>Mere days        before dying, Sarah, for whom literature and writing were foremost amongst        her cultural passions, had been interviewed for a literary website on the        subject of life and death. Horowitz recalls the intensity with which he        studied the dialogue. “Her thoughts were guiding me towards the future, as        though she were my parent rather than hers.” In particular he was struck        by a lesson Sarah took to heart from her rabbi, an important spiritual        mentor and second father in her life: “Pay attention to the ways in which        your relationship continues.”</p>
<p>These two        thoughts – “as though she were my parent” and “the ways in which your        relationship continues” -are the inspiration and guiding themes for the        rest of the book. <em>A Cracking of the Heart</em> is not so much the story of        Sarah, but the story of a relationship, imperfect in life, that has not        been cut short by her death. And, through his explorations of Sarah’s        past, her friendships and work and activities and beliefs, Horowitz        experiences a posthumous spiritual reversal of their filial        roles.</p>
<p>Sarah        Horowitz’s life is a study in deliberately hidden heroism. She was born        with a condition called Turner’s Syndrome, caused by missing cells in one        of her two X chromosomes. This resulted in a litany of afflictions that        governed her corporal existence, but never her mind or spirit.</p>
<p>Sarah was        extremely short, with a wide and webbed neck and a low hairline. She was        infertile. She had high blood pressure due to a kinked aorta (a medical        indicator for early death). She was near-sighted and hard of hearing;        eventually she became almost deaf as a result of deformed eustachian        tubes, which meant frequent ear infections. She also suffered from        diminished spatial perception and a propensity to get lost easily. Even        reduced mobility was painful due to an arthritic hip.</p>
<p>None of        these disabilities deterred her from walking two miles to synagogue and        home on Shabbat in fair weather and foul, from making her way across town        to cook and serve meals to the homeless, or from traversing oceans and        enduring physical hardship in remote and primitive communities. Bivouacked        in a Ugandan mud hut, she taught school to impoverished children of the        Abayudayu tribe of African Jews; desperately dehydrated in the slums of        Mumbai, she gave aid and comfort to sexually abused Hindu girls.</p>
<p>Determined        to live autonomously, Sarah eked out a frugal existence through menial        jobs, ate excruciatingly boring, but cheap vegetarian meals and settled        for the meagre delights of free neighbourhood entertainment.</p>
<p>Determined        as well to fulfil her educational ambitions – and refusing all financial        help (after her death Horowitz found an uncashed $500 cheque he had sent        to ease her Spartan existence) – she managed to earn two Masters degrees,        one in fine arts and one in special needs education for children, all the        while holding down a menial 8-hour a day job, and spending hours shuttling        to classes on three different buses each way at night.</p>
<p>Included        in the book is the eulogy Horowitz delivered at the funeral (it was posted        on the Internet and garnered warm feedback), which he wrote through a        “hail of tears.” He describes Sarah as an unusually temperate and        undemanding child: “I don’t ever remember losing my temper with her.”        Once, he recalls, in an absurd bid to educate her childish palate,        Horowitz urged her to choose a sour-apple flavoured ice cream instead of        her preferred staples. An obedient child, she acquiesced at once. Only        fifteen minutes later did he notice that she was not eating the ice cream.        He tasted it. It was terrible, but “In all the time that had elapsed she        had uttered no word of reproach, and she never did.”</p>
<p>She showed        early promise as a writer, and Horowitz cites with pride her greatest        public success, a ground-breaking article on hermaphrodites whose gender        was arbitrarily chosen for them by surgeons. In one of the passages from        her writing Horowitz includes, she says of one of her subjects: “I can’t        get this woman out of my head though. It is the irrevocability that haunts        me. What was done to her cannot be undone. Private pleasure has been        sacrificed for public normalcy.” Hermaphrodites’ pitiable condition – a        genetic accident leaving them stranded between one defining identity and        another – obviously struck a resonant chord with someone who was herself a        victim of physical and intellectual inheritance realities that held a        mirror up to her limitations rather than her achievements.</p>
<p>In a way,        although she was clearly talented and deeply intelligent, as several        included nuanced and polished examples of her prose and poetry attest, it        was unfortunate for a young woman already so disadvantaged to take up her        formidably credentialed and prolific father’s craft, virtually        guaranteeing herself additional torment on that account.</p>
<p>Horowitz        is a seasoned and combative professional polemicist who, motivated by        ambition for political influence and worldly success, writes powerfully        and fast. Sarah was a self-effacing, pacifistic amateur writer who,        motivated by the need for aesthetic self-expression and her father’s        approval, wrote delicately and slow. Her writing inevitably became the        locus of unresolved emotional and psychological contentions between them        that had nothing to do with writing.</p>
<p>Horowitz        recounts a telling moment in their “collegial” relationship. Sarah had        sent him a dozen pages of a novel she was writing. He was pleased by the        quality of her prose. His mind leaped ahead to publication, leading to a        teaching post perhaps or a secure literary job that would include health        benefits, a continuing anxiety for him on Sarah’s behalf, and with reason,        given her multiple fragilities. So instead of being content with praising        her writing – his validation was what she’d hoped for in sending the pages        – he asked her how long it would take to finish the novel, emphasizing the        need for a professional writer to get “product” on the market. “You write        well,” Horowitz said, fatally adding, “but you need to write        faster.”</p>
<p>Reliving        the morbid silence with which his “helpful” advice was greeted, Horowitz        takes full responsibility for the estrangement that followed it: “Now that        so many years have gone by and it is too late to retrieve my words, I        realize how far removed from her reality they were.”</p>
<p>Another        teaching moment came during a family dinner at an        East        Bay        restaurant when Sarah was in her early twenties. The conversation had        turned to political themes. Even though he knew Sarah was an active        peacenik, Horowitz admits to indulging in “near ferocious” indignation at        the anti-war movement which, he believed, gave comfort to        America’s enemies and undermined democracies.</p>
<p>Giving        free rein to his passion, Horowitz reports he was at first oblivious to        the effect of his rant on Sarah, who had remained silent. “But all of a        sudden her features came into my view with an excruciating clarity. I saw        that her eyes had grown red and liquid, and her face was convulsed as        though an immense weight was pressing inexorably down on her. Her        expression in that instant was one of such mute and irremediable suffering        that the distress of it has never left me.”</p>
<p>Overcome        with remorse, Horowitz wondered to himself, “Who is this angry person?        What sort of individual could do this to his child?” From that day on, “I        never did another thing to reduce her to tears or inflict such pain. Yet I        cannot forget that I did.”</p>
<p>As both        anecdotes imply, while her father’s reality was political, public and        aggressively ideological, Sarah’s “reality” was essentially spiritual,        private and task-oriented. During her last decade, it was her commitment        to the disciplines and rituals and social justice causes of a synagogue        community led by a charismatic rabbi trained in eastern mysticism that led        to inner peace and transcendance of her physical trammels.</p>
<p>In Sarah’s        writings and in conversations with her friends, Horowitz discovered some        happy surprises amidst reminders of his mistakes. Although chary of saying        so, Sarah appreciated who and what her father was, and the training in        coherent thinking he had gifted her with. Thus, even though she        instinctively leaned toward leftist causes, she could not be bamboozled by        mindless political correctness. She says in one of her essays, “This habit        of arguing both sides of issues is a legacy from my father&#8230;” Elsewhere        she writes that Horowitz’s early Marxism and later embitterment “left me        with a twofold legacy. I have always felt driven to pursue justice, but am        wary of ideology and partisan politics.”</p>
<p>In the        hands of a sentimentalist or a lesser writer, <em>A Cracking of the        Heart</em> could have been a maudlin exercise in hagiography and        self-flagellation. Instead, it is a loving tribute and a profound        meditation, with universal appeal, on the bond Horowitz and his daughter        shared in their common passion to effect “tikkun olam” – to repair the        world. They disagreed about the ways in which such a redemption might be        accomplished, but they were as one in believing that making the world a        better place was something which one had to do with all one’s heart, with        all one’s soul and with all one’s might. Sarah did what she could – a        great deal – in the straitened circumstances that were her portion. Part        of what she achieved was to help her father become a better man. The        relationship continues.</p>
<p>Jews say        of the departed, “May her memory be for a blessing.” Sarah Horowitz’s        “blessing” is this book. Read it, and your heart will crack a little too.</p>
<p><strong>[To order <em>A Cracking of the Heart</em>, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Heart-David-Horowitz/dp/1596981032/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1260746203&amp;sr=1-1">click here</a>]</strong></p>
<p><strong><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-41670" title="cracking_horowitz_lg" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/cracking_horowitz_lg1.jpg" alt="cracking_horowitz_lg" width="300" height="431" /><br />
</strong></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/barbara-kay/sarah%e2%80%99s-story-by-barbara-kay/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>5</slash:comments>
		</item>
	</channel>
</rss>

<!-- Performance optimized by W3 Total Cache. Learn more: http://www.w3-edge.com/wordpress-plugins/

Object Caching 999/1147 objects using disk
Content Delivery Network via cdn.frontpagemag.com

 Served from: www.frontpagemag.com @ 2014-12-31 11:28:16 by W3 Total Cache -->