"The proper method for the study of politics," said the late political scientist Walter Berns, "is biography." And while analysis and disquisition can impart wisdom about politics and much else, living examples can also provide unique insight into what is required of us as human beings, as Jews, and as responsible citizens. In this special podcast, Tikvah Senior Director Jonathan Silver is joined by Elliott Abrams, one of the American Jewish community's most accomplished public servants. A proli...
Sep 01, 2017•49 min
America is in the throes of an addiction crisis. The ravages of the opioid epidemic can be seen across the country, as it claims ever more lives. And there are other addictions—less severe, but no less real—to video games, smartphones, pornography. What can be done to assist those struggling with addiction? Are the tools of medicine and social science sufficient remedies? Or, necessary as science is, must we also tap into the spiritual resources of religion to help those on the journey down the ...
Aug 25, 2017•31 min
When Ellen Willis's brother Michael decided to leave behind his secular American life and study in an Orthodox yeshiva in Jerusalem, she knew that something was amiss. How could her intelligent, reasonable brother have decided to devote himself Jewish Orthodoxy? Yet, after flying to Israel in order to witness Michael's new lifestyle for herself, Ellen realized that Judaism's questions about the secular word—about her world—pointed to more truths than she wanted to admit. Ultimately, Ellen return...
Aug 17, 2017•33 min
The establishment of the State of Israel is one of the most remarkable achievements of the modern era. Never before had a people dispersed throughout the world, deprived of sovereignty for millennia, returned to its ancient homeland to build a thriving country. Who were the leaders and thinkers that helped craft a modern Jewish nationalism for a people so long deprived of self-determination? What moved them? What were their political teachings and key disagreements? The Tikvah Fund invites you t...
Aug 11, 2017•57 min
When Jews raise their glasses in celebration, they toast " l'chaim !" "to life!" Judaism's belief in the inherent value of our time in this world permeates Jewish law and culture, and is perhaps most clearly seen in the principle that nearly every commandment is violated in order to save a life. But how far does this commitment extend? Does Judaism support any scientific and medical progress that promises to preserve and extend life? Or are there other Jewish commitments that ought to establish ...
Aug 11, 2017•34 min
Soldier, statesman, Nobel Prize-winning author—Sir Winston Churchill was one of the most important figures of the 20th century. His judgment was vindicated when Hitler marched through Europe, and his determined leadership helped guide England through the world war that defeated fascism. Churchill's time on the world stage also intersected with the most pivotal moments in modern Jewish history—the rise of Zionism, the horror of the Holocaust, and the founding of the State of Israel. Having absorb...
Aug 04, 2017•41 min
"All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?" So mused Mark Twain in the nineteenth century. One such "secret" surely resides in the immortal language that the Jewish people kept alive—and that in many senses kept them alive—throughout their history. In his new book, The Story of Hebrew , Dartmouth College's Lewis Glinert busts the myth that Hebrew was a "dead" language in the centuries between the ancient dispersion and the bi...
Aug 03, 2017•45 min
The establishment of the State of Israel is one of the most remarkable achievements of the modern era. Never before had a people dispersed throughout the world, deprived of sovereignty for millennia, returned to its ancient homeland to build a thriving country. Who were the leaders and thinkers that helped craft a modern Jewish nationalism for a people so long deprived of self-determination? What moved them? What were their political teachings and key disagreements? The Tikvah Fund invites you t...
Aug 03, 2017•1 hr 10 min
The establishment of the State of Israel is one of the most remarkable achievements of the modern era. Never before had a people dispersed throughout the world, deprived of sovereignty for millennia, returned to its ancient homeland to build a thriving country. Who were the leaders and thinkers that helped craft a modern Jewish nationalism for a people so long deprived of self-determination? What moved them? What were their political teachings and key disagreements? The Tikvah Fund invites you t...
Jul 25, 2017•54 min
On September 13, 1993, at a historic ceremony on the White House lawn, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), shook hands as they signed the Oslo Accords and kicked off a peace process that would last the better part of a decade. The story of that day and of the subsequent events that ultimately led to the peace process's failure, are well known. But the remarkable series of events that led to the historic agreement remain...
Jul 21, 2017•50 min
As he looked out at the Western world of the 1960s and '70s, Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits saw a society whose value system had collapsed. Relativism, boredom, and permissiveness were all around him. But this void could be filled, argued Rabbi Berkovits, by a sophisticated Judaism that sought to rear the next generation in the best of the Jewish ethical tradition. " Jewish Education in a World Adrift " is a clarion call for a morally confident Judaism that can speak to the human soul in a nihilistic a...
Jul 13, 2017•36 min
The Israeli government's recent decision to shelve a plan for a state-recognized egalitarian prayer space at the Western Wall has widened the already deepening rift between Israeli and American Jews. And the debate that has arisen in its aftermath has raised vital questions about the relationship between the world's two largest Jewish communities. In this podcast, which originally aired on May 16, 2016, Elliott Abrams joins Eric Cohen to discuss his Mosaic essay, " If American Jews and Israel Ar...
Jul 06, 2017•39 min
Religious liberty is on trial in America, both in legislative debates at the state and federal level and in court cases now working their way through the judicial system. As the environment for religious traditionalists becomes more hostile, observant Jews will increasingly confront some difficult questions: Will American society continue to respect the religious freedom of traditional communities? Will the moral teachings and ritual practices of Orthodox schools and synagogues get restricted, a...
Jul 05, 2017•43 min
Why don't Jews like the Christians who like them? That's the question James Q. Wilson, one of the America's most influential political scientists, posed in the pages of City Journal in 2008. Evangelical Christians are, by and large, enthusiastic supporters of Israel, and their goodwill extends beyond sympathy for the Jewish state. American Evangelicals even harbor affection for the Jewish people themselves. Yet, these positive attitudes go largely unreciprocated by the American Jewish community,...
Jun 30, 2017•34 min
How do poetry and song convey Jewish meaning? Does Jewish poetry have to be liturgical? At the turn of the century, Ahad Ha'am challenged the early Zionist movement to conceive of the Jewish nation as a home for the Jewish national spirit. Even in the diaspora, the Jewish imagination needs tending. Who were the most prominent Jewish poets of the North American diaspora in the latter half of the twentieth century? The late singer Leonard Cohen might not come first to mind, but in this podcast, Ta...
Jun 23, 2017•42 min
Through its countless runs on the Broadway stage and in an award-winning film, Fiddler on the Roof made Tevye the dairyman the most iconic Old World Jew in the American imagination. But before he burst into song on stage and screen, Tevye was the Sholem Aleichem's comedic protagonist whose triumphs and tragedies showed readers how the rural Jewish fathers of Eastern Europe could deal with poverty, inequality, religious doubt, and, most of all, daughters. In this podcast, former Harvard Professor...
Jun 15, 2017•45 min
It was Thomas Jefferson, in a now-famous letter to the Danbury Baptist Association, who first wrote of a "wall of separation between Church & State." And it has long been America's Jews who have stood at the forefront of public arguments to keep that wall as high as possible. Why are Jews so devoted to the separation of religion and government? Is it because of a prudent assessment of Jewish interests? Or it the result of outdated beliefs that have calcified into secular dogma? In one of his...
Jun 08, 2017•46 min
This episode originally aired on July 13, 2016. We bring it to you today in commemoration of Yom Yerushalayim and the 50th anniversary of Israel's remarkable victory in the Six-Day War. In this podcast, Tikvah Executive Director Eric Cohen speaks with Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Bret Stephens about political life in Israel and America and the challenges of the Middle East and the Modern West. They discuss the legacy on the 1967 war, the work of Peter Beinart, and the dilemmas of Israeli dec...
May 24, 2017•46 min
The revelation at Sinai was central to the transformation of the people of Israel into a nation. Fresh from their Exodus from Egypt, at the foot of that mountain, a nation of slaves heard the Lord Himself pronounce His law—His "Ten Commandments"—prescribing proper conduct toward God and man. It would be hard to overstate the influence of the Decalogue in the history of West. Even in our increasingly post-Christian age, the Ten Commandments remain a potent cultural symbol. Yet, for all this famil...
May 18, 2017•1 hr 7 min
This episode originally aired on June 29, 2016. We bring it to you this week in honor of the re-publication of Norman Podhoretz's memoir, Making It , as well as the upcoming celebration of the liberation of Jerusalem. In this podcast, Eric Cohen is joined by Norman Podhoretz, the legendary former editor of Commentary . They discuss Podhoretz's essay, " Jerusalem: The Scandal of Particularity ." Cohen talks to Podhoretz about the circumstances that inspired this piece, the feelings that being in ...
May 10, 2017•35 min
Using the essay "Innovation and Redemption: What Literature Means," Ruth Wisse joins Eric Cohen to discuss the insights of famed literary critic, Cynthia Ozick. They ask if literature has a moral purpose, and observe how different approaches to the past inform creativity and the writing of fiction. Not only do Wisse and Cohen explore innovation and redemption, but they contrast innovation with experimentation. The distinction turns on an author's view of cultural heritage, and whether inherited ...
May 04, 2017•51 min
How should Israelis think about the security and defense of the Jewish State when confronted with Palestinian claims to national sovereignty? What effect will Israel's material prosperity have on the prospects for peace? What role does honor and dignity, hadar , play in the statecraft of the Middle East? Orator, statesman, writer, and political leader, Vladimir Ze'ev Jabotinsky is one of the principal figures in the Zionist founding. In this podcast, journalist and author Yossi Klein Halevi join...
Apr 26, 2017•50 min
Until recently, Tu B'Shvat—the Jewish "new year" for trees—was a minor observance on the Jewish calendar. It isn't mentioned in the Bible, and the Talmud has little to say about how to observe the day. So why is it that, across the modern denominations, Tu B'Shvat has grown into a festival of larger significance? How did what Rabbi Irving Greenberg once called a "minor semi-festival" become an environmentalist blockbuster? In this podcast, policy expert and presidential historian Tevi Troy joins...
Apr 06, 2017•25 min
American Jews have long been one of the Democratic Party's most loyal voting blocs. Since 1928, the Democratic share of the Jewish vote has only once dipped below 50 percent in a presidential election. How did this rock-solid partisan loyalty develop? Is it likely to continue into the future? And what should we make of the Orthodox Jewish community, whose voting patterns increasingly diverge from those of their coreligionists? In this podcast, Eric Cohen is joined by former Bush Administration o...
Mar 30, 2017•46 min
As Jews, as Americans, as thoughtful citizens and friends of the decent order of the West, we face great challenges to our security. Those challenges are posed by authoritarian and expansionist powers like China and Russia, by dangerous states like Iran and North Korea, by radical Islamist movements like ISIS, and by new dangers like cyberwarfare and the weaponization of space. To help us think a little more clearly about the strategy of American security and the political order it helps to unde...
Mar 24, 2017•1 hr 24 min
Lamenting the ideological polarization in American public life has become a feature of modern politics. But perhaps what ails America is less what divides the Left and Right than the errors they share. In " Taking the Long Way ," published in First Things in 2014, political thinker Yuval Levin argues that liberals and conservatives are both inspired by an overly individualistic understanding of the human person and a weak vision of political freedom. For all the apparent differences between our ...
Mar 23, 2017•49 min
It may be the world's oldest hatred, but anti-Semitism remains alive and well in the 21st century. The forces of anti-Zionism and mass immigration continually threaten the safety of Europe's Jews. Anti-Semitism remains the norm in most of the Arab world. And even in the United States, hate crimes against Jewish Americans continue to occur at an alarming rate. The intractability of this bigotry invites asking fundamental questions: Who is the anti-Semite? What is the nature of his hatred? Will he...
Mar 15, 2017•57 min
When New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art opened Jerusalem 1000-1400: Every People Under Heaven , the exhibit was greeted with tremendous fanfare. It dazzled the eyes and summoned a seductive image of medieval Jerusalem as an exciting hub of diverse cultures and religions. But is this picture of the Holy City true to history? Or was the Met trafficking in myths that anchor multicultural hopes for Jerusalem's future in a fictitious past? Did the Met help its visitors see Jerusalem as it was, or ...
Mar 09, 2017•46 min
Irving Kristol was truly one-of-a-kind. He had a capacious mind and a winsome personality, and his journey from young Trotskyist to "godfather" of neoconservatism has long captivated those who have written about his remarkable career. Yet, for all the ink spilled on Irving Kristol the man , Irving Kristol the political thinker has often been neglected. Matthew Continetti, editor of the Washington Free Beacon , believes it is long past time to devote more attention to Irving Kristol's political t...
Mar 01, 2017•39 min
Israel is an exceptional nation, and this is certainly true when it comes to the Israeli military. Tested by war, heroic in its self-defense, Israel is leading the way in developing the most advanced weapons technologies and re-imagining the new realities of the modern battlefield in an ever-changing Middle East. In an important new book— The Weapon Wizards: How Israel Became a High-Tech Military Superpower — Jerusalem Post Editor Yaakov Katz tells this story from the front lines of Israeli mili...
Feb 23, 2017•1 hr 17 min
