by A. Goodman
God sent me this crucial test and I had to make a critical choice.
While most of my peers are marrying off their children and reveling in the joys of grandparenthood, I have not yet been blessed with motherhood. At every social function, I start out all smiles and hellos, until the inevitable happens. The group launches into a lively and detailed discussion about their offspring, their offspring's offspring, playgroups, babysitters, teachers. I continue smiling, with nothing to offer and usually leave early. Feeling that others have what I do not is not a new challenge for me. I spent most of my adult life as a single woman. Every day brought with it reminders that other people had husbands. This feeling that God is bent on withholding the good stuff was so great, that after a number of years of marriage, I must remind myself every day that I actually have a husband. Once the cognitive dissonance passes, I'm able to savor budding feelings of appreciation. Yes, but other people have children too. Here we go again.I live next door to a family of 12 children. I hear their playful laughter, their voices soaring in unison ...   more »

A typical summer hike usually ends with a cool dip in the water. Dr Assaf Zeltzer, from the Yad Ben Tzvi Institute, takes us to discover a new story in a familiar place: in the footsteps of Gideon, his warriors, and the Midianites in the area of Emek Harod. A tour of living history, breathtaking views - and there is also a pool
Assaf ZeltzerBiblical stories are full of stormy plots and bloody battles that can reveal a new side to a familiar place. For example, a tour of the Jezreel Valley and the Harod Valley allows you to retrace the events of the famous battle between Gideon and the Midianites. Over the years, while the area has undergone some changes, some of the scenery is exactly how it was, and the rest you can leave to your imagination. In this manner, you can identify the Kesulot Valley as the place where the Midianite army encamped; and the Ma'ayan Harod National Park as the site where Gideon conducted the famous selection ceremony of his soldiers. The abundance of historical findings in the area beckons us to go out on a tour that begins with a lookout over the battlefield, and continues in ...   more »

Ehud Barak has dared to ask the question: What will we do when Hamas takes over Palestine? Elyakim Ha'etzni -One shouldn't envy the head of the Labor Party. The "priests" of peace will not forgive him. Although he has not yet renounced the central tenet – a foreign state on the Land of Israel, Jerusalem to the Arabs, Jewish communities to be destroyed and expelled – but for Catholics, even a small sign of independent thought or doubt is enough to depose a person from the church of true believers, and from there the way is short to the stake.Barak says that we cannot allow the establishment of a Palestinian state until we find a way to stop the Qassam rockets. He talks of a period of at least five years. And here's another proof of the dangers of allowing independent thinking: Is it only Qassams that are likely to be fired from Palestine? After all, how many years will it take before we find an electronic defense against the bullets that will fly in Jerusalem from the Palestinian streets? And after we find a solution to the "flying objects", will we have to hold back on a Palestinian state until ...   more »

By John Dorschner  
Son of Nazi embraces Judaism http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | (MCT) Bernd Wollschlaeger has two stories to tell. First, he's a former officer in the Israel Defense Forces, a physician who developed expertise in biological warfare. He lives in Miramar, Florida, runs a family practice in North Miami Beach, has become a legislative leader of the American Medical Association and is active in local Jewish causes. Now, at 49, he has decided to tell "my coming-out story." It is this: He was born the Christian son of a World War II German tank commander — a third-generation warrior who received Deutschland's highest military honor, the Iron Cross, which was pinned on his uniform by Adolf Hitler himself. As a teenager, Bernd studied the Nazis and the Holocaust and was repelled by what he learned. Ultimately, he converted to Judaism and moved to Israel. "This was, and is, very difficult to deal with, " he said. "I never saw my father again." But recently, after telling his children about his father, he started talking — first at Hillel Community Day School, where his two eldest children attend. Now, he has created a website — AGermanLife.com — and plans to publish a ...   more »

Visitors to Jerusalem who see the scrubby little hilltop called the Temple Mount may understandably be led to wonder a few things:Why do the Arabs want it so badly?Why should the Jews not give it up?And then, if that visitor is a Bible-believing Christian or Jew, he might ask: What does the Bible say about it?The answer to the third question would actually cover most bases, but let’s work through them anyway. (Needless to say this will not be an exhaustive inquiry into what has been called “the hottest piece of real estate on the planet.”)Question 1: Why do the Arabs want it so badly?This question has a number of answers ranging from the spiritual to the material.First of all let me note that it is Muslim Arabs, and not all Arabs (although Muslims make up the overwhelming majority of the Arab people) who insist on having sovereignty over the Haram al-Sharif - as they call it. This is primarily because - like the rest of the Holy Land - the Temple Mount was once under Islamic control.To understand why this is relevant we need to grasp this simple but fundamental Muslim view of the world.According to Islam, the world ...   more »

By Jon Ward - OTTAWA — President Bush's two-day summit with the leaders of Canada and Mexico, beginning today in nearby Montebello, is raising fears among some conservatives that the three governments are planning a European Union-style super-government. Concerns about such an agreement and where it could lead started on Web sites and among talk-radio hosts, picked up by CNN commentator Lou Dobbs and gained traction among some of the House Republicans who successfully derailed Mr. Bush's immigration-reform plan, which critics described as an amnesty for the millions of illegal aliens in the United States. "We want you to be aware of serious and growing concerns in the U.S. Congress about the so-called Security and Prosperity Partnership you launched with these nations in 2005," 21 Republican members of Congress, along with one Democrat, said in a letter to President Bush. The House has adopted an amendment barring U.S. transportation officials from participating in future meetings of the partnership. The White House dismissed suspicions of a coming North American Union as a "silly" conspiracy theory. "Americans are going to remain Americans, Canadians are going to remain Canadians and Mexicans are going to remain Mexicans," a senior Bush administration official said on ...   more »

The Pentagon has set 25 goals to meet by the end of the Bush administration, including implementation of a long-term plan for detaining terrorism suspects, according to a memo obtained by Reuters. Only one of the initiatives outlined in the August 9 memo directly references Iraq, but many reflect weaknesses in military capabilities revealed by nearly six years of war there and in Afghanistan. Among the initiatives, defense intelligence is ordered to quickly improve its ability to track and locate "high value targets" -- language used by military and intelligence officials for top al Qaeda suspects. The military is ordered to expand its Special Operations Forces, the covert units conducting counter-terrorism operations, and to support an agency seeking technologies to defeat improved explosive devices, the roadside bombs that have proven deadly to troops in Iraq. The memo was written by the No. 2 political official at the Pentagon, Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England. He said the goals must be completed or pushed to a major milestone by December, 2008 -- the last full month of George W. Bush's presidency. "As you are aware, the end objective is to complete or advance to a major milestone each of these initiatives and ...   more »

By Jerome R. Corsi
MONTEBELLO, Quebec – For a meeting about a secretive partnership among the heads of state of the United States, Canada and Mexico who have been reluctant to share with the public the details of the plan, the seclusion of Montebello, Quebec, is ideally situated.
The Fairmont Le Chateau resort, where U.S. President George W. Bush, Mexico's President Felipe Calderon, and Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper are meeting to discuss the Security and Prosperity Partnership, is literally in the middle of the rural Quebec woods.
At 4:30 a.m. today, SPP security workers began shuttling journalists by bus from Ottawa on the hour-long trek in the dark through the Canadian countryside.
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The resort itself has been surrounded by a double security fence – chain link on the outside perimeter and what appears to be a thick-mesh wire barrier dotted with live security cameras.
Within the compound, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police are clearly in command, and busloads of heavily armed Sûreté du Québec, the provincial police, have been dispatched throughout the compound.
Military presence, both U.S. and Canadian, also is evident, although low-key.
When Bush arrived yesterday, Harper greeted him by commenting on his Secret ...   more »

If the new sanctions imposed on Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) by the Bush administration are to have any meaningful, positive effect on Iranian behavior, they have to be seen as a first step toward pressuring Europe and Japan to curtail their financial relationships with the Iranian regime. Already confusion has emerged through leaks to The Washington Post and New York Times about how far the sanctions actually go.Michael Jacobson of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (who previously served as a senior adviser in the Treasury Department's Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence) observes that The Post's Aug. 15 account reported that the IRGC would be hit with sanctions under Executive Order 13224 (E.O. 13224) — issued on Sept. 23, 2001, by President Bush. Almost 500 people and entities are on this list. But according to the Times, the IRGC would be listed as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), joining approximately 40 other groups on that list. In a paper co-authored with Washington Institute scholar Patrick Clawson, Mr. Jacobson writes that the FTO listing would apply only to accounts at financial institutions but not to other types of property. But the E.O. 13224 designation would mean that ...   more »

By Mohammad Ali Salih - I have 12 brothers and sisters, more than 30 cousins, about 50 nieces and nephews and many friends scattered in seven Muslim countries.There are also tens of readers who respond to my writings, in Arabic and English, in print and on the Internet, from my post in Washington as a foreign correspondent for a major Arabic-language Middle Eastern newspaper. If the National Security Agency (NSA), using its new powers to monitor overseas communications without any approval from a judge, will electronically look into my communications for catch words like "Allahu Akbar (God in Greatest)," and "Kafir (infidel)," it will find them. If the NSA is looking for certain names of terrorists, their supporters, helpers and financiers among my family members, it will not find them. If the NSA is looking for Muslims who are very critical of U.S. policies towards Muslims, especially in the aftermath of September 11, may Allah help all of us. Now that telephones have reached Wadi Haj, my village, located near Argo, on the Nile River in northern Sudan, I talk with my brothers and relatives who didn't move to the city or emigrate from the country.Last week, I talked to ...   more »

Chuck Baldwin Chuck Baldwin
Once again, the burden of responsibility to help maintain America's liberty rests upon the shoulders of the men in the pulpits. That should not surprise us, because it has always been this way. Part of what made America great was old fashioned, tell-it-like-it-is, no-nonsense preaching. Most of what we hear today is a bunch of mealy-mouthed, pussyfooting, ear-tickling, don't-offend-anyone preaching, which has largely contributed to America's current slippery slope into the sewer. But if you thought it could not get any worse, guess again.A startling television news report from Shreveport, Louisiana has revealed a sinister plot hatched deep inside the diabolical brain cells of the Bush administration to use America's pulpits as promoters of tyranny. That is a strong statement, I know. But it is true.According to KSLA television in Shreveport, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) intends to use America's preachers to help pave the way for martial law in the event of another terrorist attack upon the United States.The KSLA report (which you can read for yourself here: http://www.ksla.com:80/Global/story.asp?S=6937987 ) begins, "Could martial law ever become a reality in America? Some fear any nuclear, biological or chemical attack on U.S. soil might trigger just ...   more »

by Joel Padowitz
Today marks the first day of the rest of your life. Here's a Jewish method for making that concept real.
The most auspicious time to embark on a program of self- development is the first day of the Hebrew month of "Elul." For many generations, Elul has been a time for personal change and renewal. Elul, as the month preceding the High Holidays of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, is the time specifically set aside for preparing for those events.
THE FIRST ELUL
To put Elul into historical perspective, recall the story of the Jewish people at Mount Sinai. They had blundered badly with the Golden Calf, and things were not looking good vis a vis their relationship with God.
It was on the first day of Elul that the reconciliation process began. On that day, Moses ascended Mount Sinai (for a third time), where he spent 40 days in prayer on behalf of the nation. At the same time, the Jews themselves plumbed the depths of their hearts and renewed their conviction to accept the challenge they'd received at Sinai.
Forty days later, the Jews had raised themselves up to a spiritual position where they were ...   more »