The Tikvah Podcast

It has been widely reported that, in late November of 2020, the Israeli prime minister secretly flew to Saudi Arabia for a meeting with the kingdom's crown prince. That these two leaders met at all is noteworthy; that they might have discussed the possibility of normalizing relations between the Jewish state and the wealthiest and most influential Arab country is momentous. It is easy to see what...

After a decades-long, worldwide campaign to free Soviet Jewry, in the late 1980s the borders of the Soviet Union were finally opened, allowing its Jews to immigrate to the State of Israel. This period saw approximately one million men and women from the former Soviet Union leave and resettle in the Jewish state. They came in fulfillment of Zionist aspirations, in search of material opportunities,...

The year 2020 has been one of real suffering. The Coronavirus has infected tens of millions the world over and has taken the lives of a quarter of a million Americans. It's decimated the economy, shuttered businesses, brought low great cities, and immiserated millions who could not even attend funerals or weddings, visit the sick, or console the demoralized. This podcast focuses on how to think Je...

In November of 1945, the American Jewish Committee established a new, independent magazine of Jewish ideas, with the goal of explaining America to the Jews and the Jews to America. This month, Commentary marks 75 years of publishing about everything from culture, politics, and history to foreign affairs, Israel, and Jewish thought. During that time, it has proven to be one of America's most influe...

Last week marked the 140th birthday of one of Zionism's most remarkable and prophetic leaders: Vladimir Ze'ev Jabotinsky. The intellectual father of the Revisionist school and the ideological forerunner of today's ruling Likud party, Jabotinsky exhibited more foresight during his lifetime that nearly any of his contemporaries. He was, for example, foremost in sounding the alarm about the danger to...

Under the U.S. Constitution, the freedom of religion is protected by two separate guarantees: a prohibition on the establishment of an official church and an individual right to the "free exercise" of religion. The First Amendment thus protects not only the right of the faithful to believe as their consciences dictate, but also the right to live their lives in accordance with these beliefs. Since...

During this year of lockdowns, shuttered businesses, and working from home, people have made time for many new habits and hobbies, from baking bread to reorganizing closets. In this podcast, Jewish literary and political scholar Ruth Wisse, one of our era's great masters of Jewish letters, offers her own suggestion for how to spend at least some of that time: reading the greatest works of modern J...

The Coronavirus pandemic has undermined years of economic growth and sent hundreds of thousands of Israelis onto the unemployment rolls. How can Israel—the legendary "start-up nation"—recover from this economic crisis? Dan Senor, co-author with Saul Singer of the bestselling book Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle , is one of the world's leading experts on Israel's economy in...

2020 has been a chaotic year, and last weekend, millions of Jews the world over celebrated Rosh Hashanah—the Jewish New Year—and prayed that the coming year would be better than the one that just ended. Of course, for religious Jews we're now in the midst of the ten day period between Rosh Hashana and the day of atonement, Yom Kippur. During this interim period, known as the Ten Days of Repentance...

Over the past several years, debates about America's so-called "deep state"—the web of agencies, career civil servants, and unelected bureaucrats responsible for a growing amount of federal policymaking—have increasingly found their way into political discourse in the United States. Though these arguments occasionally take conspiratorial turns, at their core is perhaps the most important question...

Since 2015, the Israeli writer and translator Hillel Halkin has published a series of ten essays in Mosaic on the seminal Hebrew writers of the 19th and early-20th centuries. They dealt with everyone from Bialik to Agnon, Rahel to Ahad Ha'am. Those essays have now been brought together in Halkin's newly published book, The Lady of Hebrew and Her Lovers of Zion . The act of writing such a book is a...

Prisoner of Zion, human-rights activist, member of Knesset, chairman of the Jewish Agency. Lecturer, author, inspiration to millions. In his 72 years on earth, Natan Sharansky has lived several lifetimes. And in his latest book, Never Alone: Prison, Politics, and My People , he partners with the historian Gil Troy to reflect on the lessons he has learned throughout a life that's taken him from the...

Though substantial progress is rarely made, peace in the Middle East is the holy grail of every American presidential administration and the subject of endless analysis and discussion. The amount of time and effort that government officials, foreign-policy experts, and diplomats have put into solving the conflict between Israel and her Arab neighbors is probably incalculable. But this month, the U...

One week ago, the president of the United States, the prime minister of Israel, and the crown prince of the United Arab Emirates together announced the normalization of relations between the U.A.E and Israel. This is Israel's first accord with an Arab nation since 1994, and it is the first time it has ever entered into such an arrangement with an Arab nation with which it does not share a border....

The book of Deuteronomy, which Jews around the globe read in synagogue in the period leading up to the High Holy Days, consists primarily of Moses's final oration to the people of Israel. With the nation on the cusp of conquering Canaan and establishing its own sovereign government, the prophet presents Israel with a set of laws and regulations surrounding power and kingship—what some scholars cal...

Last year, a former Obama-era Defense Department official testified before Congress about Chinese strategy in the Middle East, saying "China's strategy in the Middle East is driven by its economic interests...China...does not appear interested in substantially deepening its diplomatic or security activities there." This view certainly sums up conventional foreign-policy wisdom, but, write the Huds...

Just over a year ago, Secretary of State Michael Pompeo created the new Commission on Unalienable Rights , tasked with "provid[ing] the Secretary of State advice and recommendations concerning international human rights matters" as well as "fresh thinking about human rights discourse where such discourse has departed from our nation's founding principles of natural law and natural rights." The for...

After centuries of antagonism and persecution, the twentieth century introduced profound changes to the relationship between Jews and Christians. In the shadow of the Holocaust, post-War America witnessed a flowering of interfaith dialogue, often spearheaded by the more liberal wings of both groups. This flowering of interreligious cooperation was made possible by identifying the lowest common den...

On June 25, 2020, an explosion rocked the Iranian military complex of Parchin. An hour later, the city of Shiraz—which houses major Iranian military facilities—was hit with a power outage. On June 30, there was an explosion at a clinic in Tehran; on July 2, the nuclear-enrichment facility in Natanz was hit; July 4 saw an explosion at a power plant in Ahvaz. In fact, every day or two since late Jun...

Everyone can see that a revolutionary spirit is haunting American public life right now. The demands being made of our laws and culture are uncompromising and radical. The public mood is given to extremes, and notions of gradual improvement and subtle distinctions are thought to be incapable of speaking to the severity of our racial, cultural, scientific, and spiritual challenges So this week, we...

As the Supreme Court closed out it 2019-2020 term, it handed down its decision in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue . With a 5-4 majority, the Court ruled that states could not use their so-called "Blaine Amendments" in order to deny religious schools funding that is generally available to other private schools. It was a momentous decision, with implications for school choice programs and...

On May 31, 2020, American Jewry lost a giant. Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm, the longtime president of Yeshiva University (YU), was one of the nation's foremost defenders Orthodox Judaism and exponents of the Torah U'Madda —Torah and secular knowledge—philosophy that animates Modern Orthodoxy.   His passing was followed with an outpouring of remembrances from friends, family, students, and admirers. Most...

The so-called "rise of the nones" is a trend that has been going on for decades in the U.S., as more and more Americans, when asked about their religion on surveys, are checking the box labeled "none." With this trend strongest among millennials and members of Generation Z, the future seems clear: we are becoming a more secular country. Or are we? The instinctual search for religious meaning and t...

Discussions about "cancel culture," the practice of stigmatizing and ostracizing a person or institution deemed to have transgressed political correctness, have become ubiquitous in the United States. From the campus to the boardroom to the newsroom, the cost of having ever said or thought the wrong thing can now put one's reputation and livelihood at risk. And there is no path for the accused to...

Professor Wilfred McClay penned his essay, " The Soul of a Nation ," just three years after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. The essay—a deep reflection on the history, nature, and future of American civic religion—was written in part as a response to the deep questions American were asking themselves about civil society, faith, and public life in the aftermath of moment of deep and profo...