The Tikvah Podcast

Since the destruction of the Second Temple at the hands of Rome, most Jews, for most of Jewish history, have lived in the Diaspora. What are the survival strategies, built up over centuries, that allowed far-flung Diaspora communities to endure and to remain connected to the broader Jewish people? In researching her forthcoming book, Exile: Portraits of the Jewish Diaspora , Swedish-born journalis...

New York's legendary Jewish Museum was founded by the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) in 1904 with just 26 objects. When it opened to the public in 1947, JTS Chancellor Louis Finkelstein told the New York Times that he hoped the museum's artifacts would celebrate "the singular beauty of Jewish life, as ordained in the laws of Moses, developed in the Talmud, and embellished in tradition." Though...

She was one of only two women to sign the Israel's Declaration of Independence. She served as Israel's first ambassador to the Soviet Union, as labor minister, foreign minister, head of the Israeli Labor Party, and the Jewish state's only female prime minister. After Israel was hit with a surprise attack on Yom Kippur of 1973, she was a rock for the nation. Golda Meir was Israel's lioness, the mot...

President Donald Trump has moved the United States Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem; he has recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights; members of his own family are Jewish and he has forcefully spoken out against anti-Semitic comments by some elected Democrats. So of course , the American Jewish community has embraced him... Not quite. Regardless of whether or not this administration has...

Long before the Mossad became known as one of the world's greatest intelligence agencies; before the capture of Eichmann and the raid of Iran's nuclear archive; before Eli Cohen and Rafi Eitan; before Fauda captured audiences around the world, Israel's first spies were dispatched to Beirut without so much as a radio to contact home. In the spring on 1948, before the State of Israel had even been d...

On April 27, 2019, the last day of Passover, a vicious anti-Semite entered the Chabad of Poway synagogue and started shooting. Before being stopped, he murdered one worshipper and injured several others, including the congregation's rabbi, Yisroel Goldstein. Speaking to the press after the attack, Rabbi Goldstein said something truly remarkable. In the wake of the chaos and violence swirling aroun...

It was just a few years ago that the so-called "New Atheists" played an outsized role in American culture. Scientists like Richard Dawkins and polemicists like the late Christopher Hitchens wrote page after page lambasting faith as not only illogical, but also immoral and destructive. When Scott Shay —founder of a successful bank and an observant Jew—realized how much purchase their arguments had...

In just over a week, Jews the world over will recount the biblical story of the exodus from Egypt and celebrate ancient Israel's journey from slavery to freedom. But is there any proof for the Bible's account of the events surrounding the exodus? Did the exodus really happen? The answer of most contemporary academic Bible scholars is "no." Pointing to the lack of any corroborating written records...

The occupation. The Western Wall. The nation-state Law. The warm bonhomie between President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu. The rift between American and Israeli Jews grows daily. How did this happen? Wasn't Israel an issue of consensus in the American Jewish community until just recently? Wasn't Israel the rare cause that could unite Jews across the political and denominational spectrum? Agai...

In February 2019, after a protracted legislative battle over funding his long-promised wall, President Trump declared a national emergency at the southern border of the United States. The legality of this proclamation will be hashed out in the courts, but even the Trump Administration's opponents agree that the immigration system is in sore need of reform. At the heart of our immigration debate is...

On February 5, 2019, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo appointed Elan Carr as the Trump Administration's Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism. Created 15 years ago by President George W. Bush, the position of Special Envoy is charged with developing and implementing America's policy to fight anti-Semitism at home and abroad. Carr—a veteran of the Iraq War, JAG officer in the U.S....

On any given day, there are more than 400,000 children in foster care in the United States, and as the opioid epidemic continues to ravage communities across America, that number is only growing. Thousands upon thousands of American children are crying out for the stability and care that comes from living in families, and yet, many American families who want to adopt turn overseas rather than adop...

The Strengthening America's Security in the Middle East Act of 2019 was the very first piece of Senate legislation introduced in the 116th Congress. Sponsored by Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), the bill tackles a wide range of foreign policy issues. But the parts of the bill that have generated the most heated controversy are the provisions that deal with the BDS movement, the campaign to boycott, div...

Rabbi David Wolpe is the Max Webb Senior Rabbi of Sinai Temple, one of America's flagship conservative synagogues. The author of eight books and countless essays and articles, he is one of America's leading rabbis. Rabbi Wolpe recently visited one of the Tikvah Fund's student programs, where he sat down with our Executive Director, Eric Cohen, to discuss the vulnerabilities and strengths of non-Or...

On December 19 of last year, President Donald Trump made a surprise announcement: the United States would withdraw American troops from Syria. What was the strategic thinking behind this withdrawal? What did it mean for America's allies in the region? Did this withdrawal betray those alliances and abandon our friends? Did this action compromise Israel, which shares a border with Syria? In his Janu...

"Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist." So wrote the intellectual father of Communism, Karl Marx, in his " On the Jewish Question ." Though descended from rabbis on both sides of his family, his father had converted to Lutheranism, and Marx absorbed the classic anti-Semitic tropes that slandered the Jews as wicked and usurious. In fact, argues Jonah Goldberg...

In the decades since Israel's founding, the United Nations has been a hostile environment for the Jewish state first recognized by 33 sovereign nations in the U.N. General Assembly. For many years, it has seemed that the best an Israeli U.N. ambassador could do was to prevent harm. And Israel has sent some of its ablest defenders—Abba Eban, Chaim Herzog, Benjamin Netanyahu—to do just that. But Isr...

The Tikvah Podcast is back and better than ever. We went back to the drawing board, and are excited to let you know that in the coming weeks, we'll be bringing you interviews with Israel's U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon, National Review 's Jonah Goldberg, the Hudson Institute's Michael Doran, Temple Sinai's Rabbi David Wolpe, and many more incredible guests. We are also pleased to announce a brand ne...

Recent years have seen a nationalist revival sweep across the globe. Is this a cause for celebration or a reason to worry? In the Tikvah Fund's upcoming online course, "The Meaning of Jewish Nationalism," we invite you to join Israeli political philosopher Yoram Hazony for an exploration of the idea of nationalism from its biblical roots to its modern rebirth. Dr. Hazony, author of the widely-accl...

From the Pittsburgh shooting to rising anti-Semitism in Europe, from the U.S. embassy move to the Trump Administration's exit from the Iran deal, from Michael Chabon's controversial speech at Hebrew Union College to Israel's new nation-state law, 2018 has been a big year for the Jewish people and the Jewish state. Through it all, the Tikvah Podcast has tried both to stay above the fray—at a remove...

"Hark, my beloved knocks! 'Let me in, my own, My darling, my faultless dove! For my head is drenched with dew, My locks with the damp of night.'" The fifth chapter of the biblical Song of Songs tells the story of two lovers who long for each other, but see their reunion thwarted by lethargy and indifference. The great commentators of the Jewish tradition have long seen the Song of Solomon as an ex...

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith." Thus speaks Jesus in the Book of Matth ew, condemning the forerunners of Judaism's great rabbis for neglecting the spirit of the law, even while upholding its letter. Such condemnations are found throughout the New Testament, and th...

Falling out annually during the American holiday season, Hanukkah in the United States can feel like little more than a Jewish version of Christmas, subsumed by America's cultural melting pot. But the story of Hanukkah couldn't be more countercultural: it is an affirmation of Jewish particularism and pride that celebrates the triumph of Jewish nationalism and the reclamation of Jewish sovereignty....

With men clad in the hats and dark coats of old Eastern European Jewry and women walking with covered heads and modest attire, it can appear at first glance like the haredim—often called the "ultra-Orthodox"—are as conservative as Jews come. But though much haredi thought certainly arises from a conservative disposition, the haredi outlook has rarely been defended in self-consciously conservative...

What is the best political order for the world? Are universal empire and global governance the path to peace and prosperity? Or is a world made up of self-governing, independent nations the surest guarantee of individual and collective freedom? In his new book,  The Virtue of Nationalism , Israeli philosopher Yoram Hazony makes the case for the national state, arguing that despite the prejudices o...