Hebraica

What is Hebraica really about? Friedrich Nietzsche believed the ancient Jews launched a revolution in human values that eventually conquered Rome and transformed the Western world. He called it a catastrophe. Robert thinks he was right about the revolution and wrong about almost everything else. In this episode, Robert explains the cause behind all his other causes: the Hebraic Revolution, the str...

Can America defeat radical Islam? It's the question everyone is asking as we commemorate 9/11—but it could be the wrong question.  Twenty-five years after the attacks that changed his world, Robert revisits the War on Terror, Afghanistan, al-Qaeda, Iran, and a new argument for overwhelming victory—the “Carthage Doctrine”—to ask what military power can and cannot accomplish. He argues that we...

In this episode of Hebraica , Robert takes up two listener questions: the tension between the Church’s universal mission and Israel’s particular identity, and the harassment of Christians by some Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem. He argues that the two questions are connected. Christianity emerged from Israel, inherited Israel’s God, Scriptures, Messiah, and vision of history—and yet much of Christian h...

Watching Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey got Robert thinking about one of the most powerful stories in Western culture, the Hero’s Journey, and the very different story outlined by the Bible. In this episode of Hebraica , Robert compares Odysseus and Abraham—the hero and the Hebrew—and asks what happens when we measure our lives against the wrong story. The Hero’s Journey promises struggle, transf...

Israeli settlers are back in the headlines. But who are these people, what do they believe, and why is a violent fringe hijacking the rest?  In this episode, Robert travels back to a Shabbat evening in Ofra, the murder of an innocent young man, and the trauma of the Gaza disengagement to understand what drives Religious Zionism and why its radical edge is gaining ground. Ali Sawafta, "Israel...

What does a Christian owe his Jewish neighbor in a time of rising antisemitism? In this episode, Robert explains why he’s come to see the Jewish people not simply as friends or neighbors, but as brothers—and why that conviction carries practical obligations. Drawing on the New Testament and the history of Jewish-Christian relations, he makes the case for a covenantal brotherhood that goes beyond p...

Why does Christian Armenia maintain close ties with Iran while Israel has built a strategic partnership with Muslim Azerbaijan? In this episode, Robert explores the strange logic of Middle Eastern alliances and introduces the “minority shuffle”—the way small, vulnerable peoples navigate a region dominated by larger powers. From Armenia and Israel to Iran, Turkey, and Azerbaijan, he shows why minor...

Where the modern world promises universal rules, the Hebraic tradition sets the world against the backdrop of time. The effect on judgment is enormous. Drawing on verses from Ecclesiastes to Proverbs, Robert looks to Solomon for clarity in a moment of temporal distortion and distraction. The upshot: wisdom means knowing not just where we are, but when we are.

Israel's rapidly growing Haredi population is forcing the Jewish state to confront a question buried in the Zionist project from the beginning: What happens when the institutions that preserved a stateless people collide with the demands of Jewish sovereignty? In this episode -- the first of several focused on the growing place of religion in Israel -- Robert breaks down a new Israeli law foc...

A Wall Street Journal article about artificial intelligence provokes reflection on a saying from the Talmud: "From the forest itself comes the wood for the axe handle."  It's a simple saying with profound implications. Throughout history, people, institutions, businesses, and societies have often created the very conditions that led to their own decline. In this Field Note, Robert r...

Turkey is rising, Israel is worried, and President Trump is betting that his friend Recep Tayyip Erdoğan can help bring order to a chaotic region. But America has made this kind of bet before. From the Afghan jihad to the War on Terror, the United States has repeatedly empowered forces whose beliefs and ambitions it failed to take seriously, thinking their power could be harnessed for American pur...

A Pharisee rises before the Sanhedrin and saves the apostles from execution. The story of Gamaliel challenges some of Christianity's deepest assumptions about Judaism, religious authority, and the mysterious ways in which God works. At a time when political and religious disagreements increasingly tempt us to identify enemies and demand punishment, Gamaliel offers another path: humility befor...

Why do nations act the way they do? Why do some societies endure hardship while others collapse? Why do people continue to sacrifice, fight, build, and hope in ways that seem irrational to outsiders? In this episode, Robert argues that human beings (and the cultures they create) cannot be understood through material interests alone. As he puts it, we are what we believe. Our deepest convictions ab...

On the 250th anniversary of the American republic, Robert reflects on gratitude, wealth, and our tendency to focus on what we lack instead of what we have. Drawing on Ecclesiastes, the American experience, and observations from his own life, this dispatch (a new feature) dwells on what it means to be content in an age of abundance, and why counting our blessings may be the beginning of wisdom. If...

Benjamin Netanyahu recently sparked controversy by declaring that "history proves that Jesus Christ has no advantage over Genghis Khan." Critics called the remark cynical, even blasphemous. But the real problem with the statement is not that it's wrong, but incomplete. In this episode, Robert explores the worldview undergirding Netanyahu's remark, tracing it through Will Durant...

What does a handwritten copy of Psalm 145 reveal about one of history's greatest scientists?  Robert explores a newly-discovered note in Galileo's personal copy of the Almagest and argues that the astronomer's worldview was shaped not by hostility to faith, but by a radical conviction that God—not the earth, the sun, the state, or even the Church—stood at the center of things.  Alon...

After more than a decade working on issues related to Christians, Jews, and Israel, Robert has come to believe that the conversation we're having is far too small. In this episode, he reflects on a recent discussion about Israel, Gaza, and the war that followed October 7, and explains why he launched Hebraica .  Robert explains that, while political and military questions matter, they're...

Christians and Jews share a common scripture, a common moral vocabulary, and a common God. They also share a long and often painful history. In this episode, Robert explores the paradox at the heart of the Judeo-Christian tradition: how two communities so deeply connected could become so deeply estranged.

What do we mean by "Hebraic culture"? In this episode, Robert explores the idea that Jews, Christians, and others who trace their deepest beliefs back to the Bible belong to a vast but invisible cultural community. Using an analogy from the Muslim world, he explains why he believes Jerusalem continues to exert a powerful influence on people far beyond the city itself—and why understandin...

In this introductory episode, Robert Nicholson explains the idea behind Hebraica : the existence of a vast but often invisible world of Jews, Christians, and others who still see reality through the moral imagination of Jerusalem. What is the Hebraic tradition? Why does Jerusalem continue to exert such gravitational pull on the imagination? And what does the rebirth of Hebrew culture mean for Jews...