SAPIR Conversations

Anne Neuberger joined Bret Stephens to discuss her new essay, “The Jewish Case for Public Service,” in the (Fixing) America issue of SAPIR.Read Neuberger’s essay here: https://sapirjournal.org/fixing-america/2026/the-jewish-case-for-public-service/ Questions or comments? Send us a note at ⁠info@sapirjournal.org⁠ Music from #Uppbeat: ⁠https://uppbeat.io/t/theo-gerard/monsieur-groove

Tomorrow, June 10, SAPIR launches its latest issue, on (Fixing) America . An exciting set of contributors including political scientist Yascha Mounk, former deputy national security adviser Anne Neuberger, Brandeis historian Jonathan Sarna, and many others explore this era in American Jewish life, on the eve of the nation's Semiquincentennial. Is America in decline? Can America become a resili...

Are we are venturing into the twilight of an American Jewish era?  In a recent SAPIR essay, Dr. Mijal Bitton makes the case that it’s time to reimagine Jewish flourishing for a new age -- one based on a Sephardic model of preservation rather than the liberal Ashkenazi dream of social acceptance, which defined the previous century. In a wide-ranging conversation, host Rabbi David Wolpe joins Bitton...

Men are drifting, disconnected, and increasingly absent from communal life, argues longtime Jewish communal professional  Adam Teitelbaum  in his new essay,  Boyz II Mensches . What does this mean for Jewish life, starting with the bar mitzvah?   On  April 16, Rabbi David Wolpe  sat down with Adam   for a live virtual conversation where they explored how the bar mitzvah lost its power as a profoun...

Hatred of Israel has become a symptom of what plagues LGBTQ politics today, argues  Eve Barlow  in her SAPIR essay, Queers for Zion. What happens when a liberation movement loses sight of its original cause? And how can LGBTQ Jews fight back? On March 19,  Eve Barlow  joined SAPIR Editor-in-Chief  Bret Stephens  for a live virtual discussion about Israel, LGBTQ activism, the confounding emergence...

Should it matter whether Yetziat Mitzrayim — the exodus of Israelites from Egypt, the defining story of the Passover seder that Jews around the world have retold for centuries — actually happened in the way the Torah describes? Twenty-five years ago, Rabbi David Wolpe posed this very question to his congregants — and it caused quite a stir. Now, a quarter century later, he sat down with Rabbi Dr....

The oldest hatred – an honorific given to anti-Jewish prejudice – never tires. If anything, it gathers force. According to many surveys, animus towards Jews is increasing in the United States and worldwide. What should American Jewry do about it? Some believe that we should expend our capital, energy, and creativity to change hearts and minds, especially of those still reachable. That means raisin...

In an age of geopolitical fragmentation, a nation’s strength is often defined by its technological indispensability. Israel’s success, argue Yonatan Adiri and Shachar Lotan in a new SAPIR essay , hinges on embracing a new technological strategy called The Silicon Dome. On March 4th, SAPIR Editor-in-Chief Bret Stephens and Israeli entrepreneur and former chief technology officer to Shimon Peres, Yo...

Tomorrow, we launch our second issue on Aspiration —devoted to audacious ideas for a thriving Jewish future. Four years ago, when we published our first issue, the world was a very different place. In his editor’s note, Bret Stephens writes: “Jewish aspiration after October 7 is a different story. Paradoxically, it requires more realism and more ambition.” So here we are, returning with new questi...

When KIND Snacks founder  Daniel Lubetzky  looks at a glass of water, he doesn’t see it as half empty or half full. He sees an opportunity to fill up the cup.  In this SAPIR Conversation with Rabbi David Wolpe , Lubetzky explains how this mindset shaped his journey from arriving in the United States as a 16-year-old immigrant to becoming a multi-billion-dollar entrepreneur who founded one of the m...

Jack Lew was drawn to a mission of service well before becoming the 76th U.S. Secretary of the Treasury. As a kid in Forest Hills, Queens, he stepped up as his high school’s inaugural Earth Day coordinator. Inspired by a local rabbi, he supported low-income housing in his hometown. Raised in a home committed to Jewish life and Zionism but also social justice and the community around him, Lew never...

Economic vulnerability affects 1 in 4 American Jews, but it doesn’t affect all of them equally, writes Tulane University sociologist Ilana Horwitz in her recent SAPIR article,  “Poverty and Jewish Community.”  The difference between a life of temporary hardship and one of permanent poverty may, in some circumstances, boil down to whether a person or family is embedded deeply in Jewish life. Why is...

American Jewry has long thrived in a society built on institutions. But today, we live in an anti-establishment age, where subtlety fuels suspicion and open displays of power are seemingly valued for their authenticity. In this environment, should America’s Jews think and act like a state, as Jordan Chandler Hirsch argues in his essay “The Need for a Jewish Sovereign Wealth Fund”? Or is this propo...

The assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin 30 years ago, in November 1995, marked a major turning point in the prospects for peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Now, three decades later, the likelihood of a safe and secure Israel coexisting alongside an independent Palestinian state appears increasingly more remote. Despite growing international pressure, Israeli support for a two stat...

Of Israel’s many achievements since October 7, none perhaps was as unforeseen as the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange reaching an all-time high two years since the start of the war. While this reflected the resilience and dynamism of the start-up nation, there are troubling signs ahead for Israel’s economy: the high cost of war; stagnant economic sectors; bureaucratic malaise; high population growth; and m...

Why does the stereotype about Jews and money endure? Is Judaism a contractual or covenantal religion? Is Jewish life today too expensive? Should the cost of Jewish education be offset by philanthropic giving or public funding?    Join Bret and Rabbi Wolpe for a wide-ranging SAPIR Conversation on these questions and more, which are featured in the newly released issue of the journal on Money. Dive...

In the shadow of the war in Gaza, shifting ideological fault lines and coalitions are redefining the boundaries of progressive politics nationwide. The normalization of rhetoric on the Left that questions Israel’s legitimacy has become a source of growing discomfort, if not concern, for Zionists across the political spectrum. Likewise, actions of the Israeli government – before and since the recen...

Amid a troubling resurgence of antisemitism, Princeton scholar Robert P. George declared in his most recent SAPIR essay that “any attempt to deny or undermine God’s unique and mysterious bond with the Jewish people … is antithetical to Christianity.” At a moment when the concept of Jewish chosenness is increasingly uncomfortable to discuss, how should we approach it with honesty and integrity — es...

What does the process of conversion — joining the Jewish people— reveal about the meaning of chosenness? In his recent essay for SAPIR, Rabbi Adam Mintz  writes  that “we, Jews by birth and Jews by choice, are all destined for the same story.” Similarly, Rabbi Noa Kushner  writes  that “it is possible that to be chosen is not only a designation at birth or conversion.” They recently joined Rabbi D...

“For many of its secular pioneers,” writes former Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren  in his most recent SAPIR essay , “Zionism was a revolt against chosenness. It was an attempt to become a nation like every other.” Today, especially after October 7, many Israelis are reevaluating this very notion and wondering: is the Jewish state chosen, and if so, for what purpose? Ambassador Oren joined SAPIR Ed...

Today marks a new chapter as we re-launch the podcast, SAPIR Conversations, with even more discussions and double the hosting power. Moving forward, Rabbi David Wolpe - scholar-in-residence at the Maimonides Fund, Max Webb Emeritus Rabbi of Sinai Temple, prolific author, writer, and longtime SAPIR contributor - will join Bret Stephens as co-host of SAPIR Conversations . Bret will continue to host...

Charlie Kirk, a conservative political activist, was murdered at a campus event in Utah on the afternoon of Wednesday, September 10th, 2025. As Americans reckon with this horrific act of political violence, many are alarmed at the grim message it offers about the state of our politics and where our democracy is headed. In a special SAPIR conversation with SAPIR Editor-in-Chief Bret Stephens and Ma...

Twelve days of war between Israel and Iran sparked passionate debates about the future of the Islamic Republic. How did Israel’s strikes impact the stability of the regime? What are the implications of the war on Iranian dissidents, opposition figures, and everyday Iranian citizens? And what does the historically fractious Iranian diaspora hope for in the weeks and months ahead? To answer these qu...

Do we still expect journalists—and the outlets they represent—to be objective? Or have we come to accept that much of today’s media falls into the realm of activist journalism? What are the consequences when activist journalism and objective reporting become indistinguishable? On Monday, June 30 at 12:00 PM ET, SAPIR Institute Director Chanan Weissman moderated a conversation between SAPIR Editor-...

It’s been less than a week since the unprecedented U.S. military strikes against the Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan nuclear facilities in Iran. Codenamed “Operation Midnight Hammer,” the attack was designed to degrade Iran’s nuclear weapons capabilities. However, there are conflicting reports about its success. Were the sites destroyed or severely damaged? What is the impact of the attacks on the Ira...