This should be obvious. What's not to like about Thanksgiving? But for many Orthodox Jews it's not so obvious - a fact which speaks volumes to the thinking of many in that community. But what really makes this question interesting is that how one answers, regardless of one's religious affiliation, is the way in which the answer reveals how one thinks about Jews living in a largely non-Jewish culture. And ultimately, the same can be said for any religious or ethnic minority wrestling with its relationship to the larger American culture in which they live.

Every minority, including Jews, must ask if its identity is simply a function of difference from the larger culture, in which case the more popular something becomes in the larger culture, the more threatening it is. Or, can we imagine that things can be deeply embedded in other cultures as well and still be deeply and profoundly Jewish? Obviously, other religious and ethnic groups would substitute their group for Jewish, but the question remains the same. I am using 'Jewish' because that is the tradition I follow.

What's going on at Google is often a good way to get a handle on what's going on in America. Trends in search terms are signals of trends in the culture, and today brought some very bad news. Any time the citizens of a state, particularly a democracy, invoke their faith to pray for the demise of those they oppose politically, we should be concerned. When the call for such prayers becomes one of the most popular Google searches in the country, we should shake, especially those of us who believe in God, prayer and the Bible. Psalm 109, verse 8, went viral this morning, November 16, in just that way.

I have no reason to believe that New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd hates Jews, but after reading her November 11 column, many people are asking, and not without some justification. In writing about Goldman Sachs, the famously/infamously successful investment bank, Dowd dredged up ancient and dangerous motifs that have inspired hatred of Jews for 2000 years.

John Allen Muhammad, known as the D.C. sniper, will be executed tonight in Virginia. Muhammad, along with his protégé Lee Boyd Malvo, murdered 10 and terrorized millions for weeks, until he was captured in the fall of 2004. And when he dies tonight, there will likely be those outside the prison cheering the fact that "he's getting what he deserves" and an equal number of people protesting his "murder" by the state.

Are either of them right? Is there a Jewish approach to the death penalty? The short answers are, respectively, no and yes.

With 13 dead, 30 wounded and a Muslim officer who shouted 'Allahu Akbar' as he opened fire on them, we must do three things: first, most importantly, we must care for the injured, support their families, and comfort the mourners. Second, we must fight all efforts to use this tragedy to cast aspersions upon an entire tradition and all of its followers. And third, we, and more importantly those followers, must ask tough questions about the relationship between the faith which the shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, followed and the actions which he took.

The human issues really are job one. And the test of that commitment will be in the way which people not only reach out to the families of the victims, but also to the Hasan family as well. They too, by all accounts, are victims. There is no evidence that they supported Maj. Hasan in his terrorist attack, and they are among the most vulnerable to any potential backlash which may occur. While the military and the FBI will certainly continue to investigate all aspects of this case, including Hasan's family, until we know otherwise, they too deserve our compassion and concern.

Starting this week, millions of New Yorkers will be told, 'yes' as adds begin appearing in New York City subways which tell them so. Following past campaigns in Dallas, Chicago and other locations around the nation this advertising campaign for Greg Epstein's book of the same name, is clearly meant to provoke, not educate. And that is truly a shame for everybody but Mr.Epstein and his publisher.

Given the fact that we are the most faithful population among all Western developed countries (70% of Americans report that religion is very important to them and over 90% profess belief in some greater power), and also locked in bitter disputes about the role of faith in our nation, this campaign may be good for book sales, but it's far less interesting than it otherwise might be. In fact, it looks and sounds remarkably similar to the kinds of pro-God campaigns which annoy the very people who sponsored this one!

Two South Carolina Republican officials have apologized for defending U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint by likening him to Jews who "take care of the pennies." Edwin Merwin and James Ulmer, Chairman of the GOP in Bamberg County and Orangeburg County respectively, wrote in to the Orangeburg Times to explain why Senator DeMint deserved praise for not bringing home as much pork as some of his detractors would like. And you have to love the fact that they defended a senator's avoidance of pork by explaining the Jewishness of his actions, even if it was not dietary laws which they had in mind.

When I first read that President Obama had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, it was in a 5 a.m. email from a friend, not a fan of the President's, and I assumed my friend was joking. Reading this morning's Washington Post, I realized three things: he was not, the judges were misguided and/or misunderstood at best, and that their decision may actually make a mockery of an otherwise noble prize.

After much politicking by the Congressional Prayer Caucus, the words "In God We Trust" are now engraved in big gold letters at the Capitol Visitor Center. Good or bad, it got me thinking about what it is we supposedly trust God for. As far as I can tell, historically the term refers to our trust in God's protection of our nation. But what does it mean for a nation to be protected by God?

Despite the attitude of many Jewish leaders, I am not certain that ignoring this famously hateful church group at Westboro Baptist Church is the best way to go. Members of Topeka, Kansas, congregation will be in New York for a variety of activities, including planned protests at numerous Jewish institutions. Among the stops on their tour d'fear and hate is Temple Beth El on Long Island, where a memorial service will be held Thursday for murdered Yale student Anne Le. The temple was to be the site of her wedding to fiancé Jonathan Widawsky.

Ignoring these protesters strikes me as a bad idea for any number of reasons, not least of which is that, with any group is as hateful and fearful as this, failure to engage is often construed as tacit permission, or at least passive acquiescence. And more often than not, history teaches us that silence is deadly. How can we not respond to a group that announces itself like this:

"Two Christian girls. Two sets of distraught parents. And two state courts smack in the middle of it." That's how William McGurn begins his Wall Street Journal coverage of two cases that could not be more dissimilar. And if we cannot make the proper distinction between the two, we are all in trouble.

It may be due to aggressively activist courts prepared to strip parents of their rights to shape their kids' religious upbringing, or because of overly timid courts who hide behind that very right to avoid protecting children from parents prepared to kill them over their religious choices. Either way, if the wrong decisions are upheld in either of these cases, we should all be worried.