By Debbie Schlussel
Happy Thanksgiving to all of my friends and readers.
We have much to be thankful about here in America at the end of 2008. If you are reading this site, you know that I still have the freedom to write whatever I wish on its pages and that you have the freedom to read it and whatever else you like.
Although we are in a near-depression here in Michigan and an economic recession all over America, we are still residents of the greatest country on earth. Most of all, I am thankful to be an American.
I am thankful for my health, that I am alive, that I have the freedom of speech to exercise with this site. I am thankful for all of my freedoms here in America, since (for now), we still have them. I am mindful that even though as Americans we are the luckiest people on earth, we are also targets. I am thankful I am not one of the Americans murdered or taken hostage by Muslims in Mumbai, India, last night. While I give thanks today, I pray for them and their families, as well as Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg, an Israeli Rabbi and his wife also taken hostage last night. May G-d keep them safe and rescue them.

I am thankful for you, my readers, and your continued support of this site–your comments, tips to me on stories and scoops, and your overall moral support for what I do here. Your continued growth in size and numbers makes what I do here all worth it. I’m not just yelling at the wind here because you made it so.
Enjoy your turkey and fixings (as I will), but remember what today is really all about. And how lucky we are.
G-d Bless America!
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Chabad Lubavitch–the Orthodox Jewish Chassidic organization stormed by Muslim terrorists last night–does great charity works for the gentile poor around the world. Read about Chabad’s kosher Thanksgiving dinner meal for 700 indigent Los Angeles residents at the Hard Rock Cafe. Since Judaism is not a proselytizing religion, there is no motive other than doing good and helping people. Chabad makes me proud to be a Jew.

The foundation of this nation was laid by the Founding Fathers, who after coming to this country proclaimed a holiday of Thanksgiving to G-d, Creator and Director of the world, for having saved them and bringing them to a secure land where they could live free of oppression and decrees–to live as they see fit, beginning from practicing their faith in G-d as Creator and Director of the world, in their own times, in their own lives, and their own rescues. They even established it as a law that every year on that day, it must be remembered again, to thank G-d from the depths of our hearts, for having shown them His kindness openly.
It has been established even for non-believers–who in their hearts believe as well, but for whatever reason, boast that they do not believe, or they believe that G-d is far away, somewhere in the Seventh Heaven. But even they know that when a matter affects them seriously, they pray to the Superbeing, to G-d, for help. And certainly, they participate in the Thanksgiving celebration for the founding of this nation by the first gentiles who arrived here.
. . . [A]lthough there were Jews among them, the majority, who established Thanksgiving, were non-Jews. This faith has been celebrated from generation to generation, including our own generation. . . .
[T]he Founders began their life in this country by thanking G-d. . . . This is the foundation of this country, to save the righteous from the hands of evil.

–The late Lubavitcher Rabbi, Menachem Mendel Schneerson (Blessed Be His Memory), on Thanksgiving and America’s Founding Fathers. (Thanks to reader Yonason for the tip.)