Leora Batnitzky

Princeton University

Leora Batnitzky is Perelman Professor of Religion and Chair of the Department of Religion at Princeton University as well as the Director of Princeton's Tikvah Project on Jewish Thought. She is the author of Idolatry and Representation: The Philosophy of Franz Rosenzweig Reconsidered (Princeton, 2000), Leo Strauss and Emmanuel Levinas: Philosophy and the Politics of Revelation (Cambridge, 2006), and How Judaism Became a Religion: An Introduction to Modern Jewish Thought (Princeton). Her current project focuses on the conceptual and historical relations between modern religious thought (Jewish and Christian) and modern legal theory (analytic and Continental). She received a B.A. in philosophy from Barnard College, Columbia University and a B.A. in biblical studies from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. Her M.A. and Ph.D. are in religion from Princeton University.

Publications & Selected Readings

JEWISH LEGAL THEORIES: WRITINGS ON STATE, RELIGION, AND MORALITY | BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY PRESS

HOW JUDAISM BECAME A RELIGION | PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

LEO STRAUSS AND EMMANUEL LEVINAS | CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

IDOLATRY AND REPRESENTATION | PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Yuval Levin

National Affairs

Yuval Levin is the director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). He also holds the Beth and Ravenel Curry Chair in Public Policy. The founding and current editor of National Affairs, he is also a senior editor of The New Atlantis and a contributing editor to National Review.

Dr. Levin and scholars in the Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies research division study the foundations of self-government and the future of law, regulation, and constitutionalism. They also explore the state of American social, political, and civic life, while focusing on the preconditions necessary for family, community, and country to flourish.

Dr. Levin served as a member of the White House domestic policy staff under President George W. Bush. He was also executive director of the President’s Council on Bioethics and a congressional staffer at the member, committee, and leadership levels.

In addition to being interviewed frequently on radio and television, Dr. Levin has published essays and articles in numerous publications, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and Commentary. He is the author of several books on political theory and public policy, most recently “A Time to Build: From Family and Community to Congress and the Campus, How Recommitting to Our Institutions Can Revive the American Dream” (Basic Books).
He holds an MA and PhD from the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago.

Publications & Selected Readings

A TIME TO BUILD | BASIC BOOKS

THE GREAT DEBATE | BASIC BOOKS

THE FRACTURED REPUBLIC | BASIC BOOKS

NATIONAL AFFAIRS |

Ruth Wisse

Distinguished Senior Fellow, The Tikvah Fund

Recently retired from her position as Martin Peretz Professor of Yiddish Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature at Harvard, Professor Wisse is currently Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Tikvah Fund. Her books on literary subjects include an edition of Jacob Glatstein’s two-volume fictional memoir, The Glatstein Chronicles (2010), The Modern Jewish Canon: A Journey through Literature and Culture (2003), and A Little Love in Big Manhattan (1988). She is also the author of two political studies, If I Am Not for Myself: The Liberal Betrayal of the Jews (1992) and Jews and Power (2007). Her latest book, No Joke: Making Jewish Humor, a volume in the Tikvah-sponsored Library of Jewish Ideas, was recently published by Princeton University Press.

Publications & Selected Readings

FREE AS A JEW | SIMON AND SCHUSTER

JEWS AND POWER | SCHOCKEN

IF I AM NOT FOR MYSELF | FREE PRESS

THE MODERN JEWISH CANON | FREE PRESS

NO JOKE: MAKING JEWISH HUMOR | PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Dr. Samuel Goldman

Associate Professor of Political Science at George Washington University

Samuel Goldman is an associate professor of political science at George Washington University, where he is also executive director of the John L. Loeb, Jr. Institute for Religious Freedom and director of the Politics & Values Program. His first book God’s Country: Christian Zionism in America was published by the University of Pennsylvania Press in 2018. His next book, After Nationalism was published in Spring 2021. Goldman received his Ph.D. from Harvard, and taught at Harvard and Princeton before coming to GW. In addition to his academic work, Goldman is a national correspondent at The Week and a contributing editor at The American Conservative. His writing has appeared in The New York TimesThe Wall Street Journal, and many other publications.

Publications & Selected Readings

AFTER NATIONALISM | UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS

GOD'S COUNTRY | UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS

Eric Cohen

The Tikvah Fund

Eric Cohen has been the Executive Director of the Tikvah Fund since 2007.  He was the founder and remains editor-at-large of the New Atlantis, and he serves as the publisher of the Jewish Review of Books and Mosaic. Mr. Cohen has published in numerous academic and popular journals, magazines, and newspapers, including the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Weekly Standard, Commentary, The New Republic, First Things, and numerous others. He is the author of In the Shadow of Progress: Being Human in the Age of Technology (2008) and co-editor of The Future is Now: America Confronts the New Genetics (2002). He was previously managing editor of the Public Interest and served as a senior consultant to the President’s Council on Bioethics. Mr. Cohen currently serves on the board of directors of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, the Witherspoon Institute, and National Affairs and on the Editorial Advisory Board of First Things.

Publications & Selected Readings

JEWISH CONSERVATISM: A MANIFESTO | COMMENTARY MAGAZINE, MAY 2017

IN THE SHADOW OF PROGRESS | ENCOUNTER BOOKS

Alan Rubenstein

Alan Rubenstein was educated in Liberal Arts at St. John’s College in Annapolis, MD, and also at Georgetown University. He was a senior consultant for the President’s Council on Bioethics and currently serves as Hanson Scholar of Ethics at Carleton College in Northfield, MN. At Carleton, he teaches ethical thought through close reading of great literature of the West—in particular, Plato, the Hebrew Bible, and Shakespeare. He is currently Director of University Programs for the Tikvah Fund. His published essays have focused on the philosopher Hans Jonas, the Hebrew Bible, and Judaism in middle America. He is married and a father of three children.

Publications & Selected Readings

WHAT AND WHEN IS DEATH? | THE NEW ATLANTIS

THE NARROW BRIDGE | MOSAIC MAGAZINE

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