While today Israel enjoys wide support on both sides of the American political aisle, this was not always the case. Late in 1956 the eminent political theorist Leo Strauss took the unusual step of commenting on contemporary political affairs to come to Israel’s defense. Strauss was moved to write by attacks against the nascent Jewish state […]

How does today’s anti-Zionist sentiment compare to historical anti-Semitism? In this 2013 article from Commentary, Robert Wistrich compared the similarities and differences between the two. In both today’s vilification of Israel and traditional anti-Semitism, the Jews are seen as a menace to peace and order. Throughout time, the ideological hatred of the Jewish people has […]

Over the last decade, as the United States has reconsidered its role in the world and its place in the Middle East, academics and ideologues alike have turned their attention to America’s relationship with Israel and the power of an “Israel lobby.” Many American Christians and Jews are eager for a closer alliance between the […]

Press play below to listen to the podcast, download it in the iTunes Store, or stream it via Stitcher.  In this podcast, Eric Cohen sits down with the legendary editor of Commentary, Norman Podhoretz, to discuss his 2007 essay, “Jerusalem: The Scandal of Particularity.” The ancient capital of the Jewish people, Jerusalem, has been the essential center of […]

As recently as the Cold War, the center-right and the center-left overcame their differences on other issues to oppose the enemies of the open society. In a lecture to alumni and guests of the Tikvah Fund, Standpoint editor Daniel Johnson argues that the center is failing to hold and that illiberalism’s many forms are on […]

Biblical history is the fount of the Jewish people’s collective memory, and the editors and redactors of the Hebrew Bible strategically deployed this history for a distinctly political purpose. In the pages of Azure, biblical scholar Jacob Wright argued that, in addition to celebrating the glory of military victory, the editors of the Hebrew Bible […]

How a nation understands its founding shapes its aims and ideals decades after its founding. For Israel, that means interpretations of the thought of Theodor Herzl speak to fundamental questions of national life. By the year 2000, the Israeli left launched a campaign to officially redefine Israel as a secular, democratic state with a Jewish majority […]

Press play below to listen to the podcast, download it in the iTunes Store, or stream it via Stitcher.  In this podcast, Michael Doran, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and prominent scholar and commentator on Middle Eastern affairs and world politics, talks with Tikvah’s Eric Cohen about a classic essay excoriating Western elites for misunderstanding the […]

Press play below to listen to the podcast, download it in the iTunes Store, or stream it via Stitcher.  In this podcast, the Tikvah Fund’s Distinguished Senior Fellow, Ruth Wisse, joins Eric Cohen to discuss her 2015 Mosaic essay, “Anti-Semitism Goes to School.” Drawing on her experiences at Harvard University and elsewhere, Wisse argues that there has been […]

What is the theological meaning of Israel’s improbable triumph in the Six Day War? In 1968, Tradition convened leading Jewish thinkers from both Israel and the United States to consider the religious significance of the reunification of Jerusalem. Rabbi Norman Lamm, Michael Wyschograd, Pinchas Peli, Rabbi Shear Yashuv Cohen, and Rabbi Walter Wurzburger all contributed reflections. Here is Michael […]