The Tikvah Podcast

How do poetry and song convey Jewish meaning? Does Jewish poetry have to be liturgical? At the turn of the century, Ahad Ha'am challenged the early Zionist movement to conceive of the Jewish nation as a home for the Jewish national spirit. Even in the diaspora, the Jewish imagination needs tending. Who were the most prominent Jewish poets of the North American diaspora in the latter half of the tw...

Through its countless runs on the Broadway stage and in an award-winning film, Fiddler on the Roof made Tevye the dairyman the most iconic Old World Jew in the American imagination. But before he burst into song on stage and screen, Tevye was the Sholem Aleichem's comedic protagonist whose triumphs and tragedies showed readers how the rural Jewish fathers of Eastern Europe could deal with poverty,...

It was Thomas Jefferson, in a now-famous letter to the Danbury Baptist Association, who first wrote of a "wall of separation between Church & State." And it has long been America's Jews who have stood at the forefront of public arguments to keep that wall as high as possible. Why are Jews so devoted to the separation of religion and government? Is it because of a prudent assessment of Jewish inter...

This episode originally aired on July 13, 2016. We bring it to you today in commemoration of Yom Yerushalayim and the 50th anniversary of Israel's remarkable victory in the Six-Day War. In this podcast, Tikvah Executive Director Eric Cohen speaks with Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Bret Stephens about political life in Israel and America and the challenges of the Middle East and the Modern West....

The revelation at Sinai was central to the transformation of the people of Israel into a nation. Fresh from their Exodus from Egypt, at the foot of that mountain, a nation of slaves heard the Lord Himself pronounce His law—His "Ten Commandments"—prescribing proper conduct toward God and man. It would be hard to overstate the influence of the Decalogue in the history of West. Even in our increasing...

This episode originally aired on June 29, 2016. We bring it to you this week in honor of the re-publication of Norman Podhoretz's memoir, Making It , as well as the upcoming celebration of the liberation of Jerusalem. In this podcast, Eric Cohen is joined by Norman Podhoretz, the legendary former editor of Commentary . They discuss Podhoretz's essay, " Jerusalem: The Scandal of Particularity ." Co...

Using the essay "Innovation and Redemption: What Literature Means," Ruth Wisse joins Eric Cohen to discuss the insights of famed literary critic, Cynthia Ozick. They ask if literature has a moral purpose, and observe how different approaches to the past inform creativity and the writing of fiction. Not only do Wisse and Cohen explore innovation and redemption, but they contrast innovation with exp...

How should Israelis think about the security and defense of the Jewish State when confronted with Palestinian claims to national sovereignty? What effect will Israel's material prosperity have on the prospects for peace?  What role does honor and dignity, hadar , play in the statecraft of the Middle East? Orator, statesman, writer, and political leader, Vladimir Ze'ev Jabotinsky is one of the prin...

Until recently, Tu B'Shvat—the Jewish "new year" for trees—was a minor observance on the Jewish calendar. It isn't mentioned in the Bible, and the Talmud has little to say about how to observe the day. So why is it that, across the modern denominations, Tu B'Shvat has grown into a festival of larger significance? How did what Rabbi Irving Greenberg once called a "minor semi-festival" become an env...

American Jews have long been one of the Democratic Party's most loyal voting blocs. Since 1928, the Democratic share of the Jewish vote has only once dipped below 50 percent in a presidential election. How did this rock-solid partisan loyalty develop? Is it likely to continue into the future? And what should we make of the Orthodox Jewish community, whose voting patterns increasingly diverge from...

As Jews, as Americans, as thoughtful citizens and friends of the decent order of the West, we face great challenges to our security. Those challenges are posed by authoritarian and expansionist powers like China and Russia, by dangerous states like Iran and North Korea, by radical Islamist movements like ISIS, and by new dangers like cyberwarfare and the weaponization of space. To help us think a...

Lamenting the ideological polarization in American public life has become a feature of modern politics. But perhaps what ails America is less what divides the Left and Right than the errors they share. In " Taking the Long Way ," published in First Things in 2014, political thinker Yuval Levin argues that liberals and conservatives are both inspired by an overly individualistic understanding of th...

It may be the world's oldest hatred, but anti-Semitism remains alive and well in the 21st century. The forces of anti-Zionism and mass immigration continually threaten the safety of Europe's Jews. Anti-Semitism remains the norm in most of the Arab world. And even in the United States, hate crimes against Jewish Americans continue to occur at an alarming rate. The intractability of this bigotry inv...

When New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art opened Jerusalem 1000-1400: Every People Under Heaven , the exhibit was greeted with tremendous fanfare. It dazzled the eyes and summoned a seductive image of medieval Jerusalem as an exciting hub of diverse cultures and religions. But is this picture of the Holy City true to history? Or was the Met trafficking in myths that anchor multicultural hopes for...

Irving Kristol was truly one-of-a-kind. He had a capacious mind and a winsome personality, and his journey from young Trotskyist to "godfather" of neoconservatism has long captivated those who have written about his remarkable career. Yet, for all the ink spilled on Irving Kristol the man , Irving Kristol the political thinker has often been neglected. Matthew Continetti, editor of the Washington...

Israel is an exceptional nation, and this is certainly true when it comes to the Israeli military. Tested by war, heroic in its self-defense, Israel is leading the way in developing the most advanced weapons technologies and re-imagining the new realities of the modern battlefield in an ever-changing Middle East. In an important new book— The Weapon Wizards: How Israel Became a High-Tech Military...

In 2010, the theologian Michael Wyschograd published " A King in Israel ," a provocative essay in which he argues for defining the Jewish State as a democratic, constitutional monarchy. Wyschograd proposes that, without changing anything about the functioning of the Israeli government, the president of the state be given the title, "Regent of the Throne of David"—reconstituting the third Jewish co...

Sometimes, it takes an outsider to teach a community about its own deepest truths and most powerful teachings. In " Faith in the Flesh ," one of America's most insightful Catholic thinkers does just that for faithful Jews. In this breathtaking piece, published in Commentary a decade ago, R.R. Reno offers a profound meditation on the meaning of Jewish ritual, education, and distinctiveness. Framed...

In this podcast Jonathan Silver speaks with the Hudson Institute's Arthur Herman about his November 2016 Mosaic essay , which bucks conventional wisdom with the thesis that much of the world is warming to and developing closer ties with the Jewish State. Despite the impression one might get by observing the attitudes of Western governments toward Israel, this warming phenomenon can be observed fro...

In this podcast Tikvah senior director  Jonathan Silver  speaks with the Hoover Institution's  Peter Berkowitz  about what a proper liberal arts education consists of, its betrayal in the American academy, and its complicated relation to Jewish education and religious life. Their conversation is framed by Berkowitz's 2006  Policy Review  article, " Liberal Education: Then and Now ." Elaborating th...

On Wednesday, September 14, 2016, alumni of Tikvah's advanced programs and friends of  Mosaic   came to an intimate discussion between the Israeli philosopher Yoram Hazony and the American author and historian Walter Russell Mead . The subject of their conversation was the same as the title of Yoram Hazony's essay in  Mosaic : " Nationalism and the Future of Western Freedom ." Hazony argues that t...

On Wednesday, September 14, 2016, alumni of Tikvah's advanced programs and friends of  Mosaic   came to an intimate discussion between the Israeli philosopher Yoram Hazony and the American author and historian Walter Russell Mead . The subject of their conversation was the same as the title of Yoram Hazony's essay in  Mosaic : " Nationalism and the Future of Western Freedom ." Hazony argues that t...

On Wednesday, September 14, 2016, alumni of Tikvah's advanced programs and friends of  Mosaic   came to an intimate discussion between the Israeli philosopher Yoram Hazony and the American author and historian Walter Russell Mead . The subject of their conversation was the same as the title of Yoram Hazony's essay in  Mosaic : " Nationalism and the Future of Western Freedom ." Hazony argues that t...

In this podcast Eric Cohen and Rabbi Meir Soloveichik speak about two artistic geniuses whose works highlight Jews' humanity, on the one hand, and other-worldliness, on the other. These two sides of the Jewish people—at once part of the human race and God's chosen people—comprise Jews' inherently dialectical nature, Soloveichik argues. Framed by Soloveichik's recent essay, " Rembrandt's Great Jewi...

Britain's June 23 referendum on independence was the most important vote in a democratic nation in a generation, Yoram Hazony argues in " Nationalism and the Future of Western Freedom ," his September 2016 Mosaic essay. Its outcome, in favor of an exit from the EU, provoked fear, outrage, and despair in elite opinion in both Europe and the United States. At the same time, however, the re-emergence...